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exoticalmonde · 1 month

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LUNDInium Outskirts /but it's her insane doodles/ PART I

First of all, thank you @cilundi for always indulging in our silly ideas about the doodles that DO involve all of us Doctors. Second of all, I'm sorry /I am not/ but you are getting blasted on Tumblr for being a horse lover. Anyways, the doodle dump ladies and gentlemen with some context.

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Valentines Day doodles of all of us spending the day with our favourites

Naturally, Dr. Kryo is going to take care for his wife the two ways he can without being set on fire.

Meanwhile Swire is taking care of Dr. Pinkie the one way they can equally enjoy - babygirlifying and being pampered with chucken nuggets.

I wrote a tiny fic about how Mlynar made Pierogi for Dr. Lundi a couple days earlier and it was accompannied with this, which I am ecstatic about. They are SO happy.

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WOW HOW DID HE KNOW THAT I ALSO LOVE BOOKS AND BARELY EVER GO OUT OF MY OFFICE BECAUSE IM EITHER WRITING OR DRAWING SOMETHING WHAT A FANTASTIC SURPRISE I LOVE IT THANK YOU HUSBAND HAPPY VALENTINES.

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Lundi @ Mlynar every time. Dropping the McLateronalds, fries are ALL over the floor.

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY 3RD OF DECEMBER MILLERMAN

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Actually probably posted about this 10 times already, but I love being the accomplice to what would have basically been theft of the Mlynar live cardboard prop or whatever it was that was spotted during some Con/Official Arknights event. Initially the idea was for us to be on a bike but it is more our style to walk until one of the Dr.s gets a liscence.

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Just uncle having his reading time

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I think this is actually one of the first doodles? Or maybe the 10001st but it perfectly features their relationship and I am so proud to be an enabler with the rest of the Doctors.

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E-mail! :<

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He is the first, the second and the third.

Uncle Mlynar is life.

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Delusional skin wanter

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Is he waiting for somebody?

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Less of a doodle, more of a wip that is details of the life that Mr. Wanderer leads now that he's on Rhodes Island N.13

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She got the Mlynar plush if you had ever wondered. Not that there was any place to doubt the circumstance.

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Me: Asbestos and W put bombs under each other's desks and then proceeded to hotwire them together by accident which triggered the bomb Executor put in the Dr.'s office

Lundi: Explaining to Mlynar why my office is once again a mess

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The Welcoming Party didn't go too well.

Or did it go according to plan actually???

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Typical day in Laterano

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Furthermore, Illegal Laterano activities happening on Rhodes Island and everybody is on it except for Mlynar.

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'Finally some quiet...'

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The perfect banners!!!!!

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Actually an unfortunate day to be playing a level in Arknights.

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#friendship #art #doodles #friend's art #doctor of ri shenanigans #arknights #arknights mlynar #arknights hoederer #arknights surtr #arknights swire #arknights oc #arknights doctor #arknights art #arknights fanart #arknights doctors in love #arknights memes #arknights but we are all deranged #arknights executor #arknights flamebringer

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ais-for-alex · 3 years

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The Scars of Our Past: Chapter 23

Hope y’all enjoy the chapter 🥰

“Why is it every time I see you, you look even more exhausted than when you left?” Fabian said only half joking while looking him up and down critically. Leo huffed a sigh as he dropped his bag and plopped down next to his friend to start lacing up his skates.

Leo chuckled in response, “I don’t know man, it’s just been… an emotionally charged week.”

“Yeah? Didn’t you just move in with that guy, I thought you would be happy? Is it already not working out?”

“No,” Leo answered quickly, making Fabian glance over at him in surprise, “no, it’s been great, Finn is great. There’s just…” Leo let his voice trail off, not entirely sure what it was he wanted to say. His mind flicked back to the night before, falling asleep in Finn's bed, the man himself wrapped up tight in his arms, the warm velvety timer of his voice lulling him into unconsciousness as he painted pictures with his words. Then this morning when he woke up alone, the warm sheets his only companion.

When the early morning sunrays began streaming through Finns open blinds Leo had slowly blinked his eyes open a bit nervously. He couldn’t help the butterflies fluttering inside him, he was scared to see where he would stand with Finn now that the cover of night had been stripped away by the golden light of morning. However, it seemed his fear was unwarranted as the redhead was nowhere to be found once Leo had finally opened his eyes. Glancing down at the empty space Finn’s body had once occupied, Leo found a slip of paper; one edge was ragged like it had been torn from a notebook and in neat angular handwriting was a message.

Good morning Nutter Butter. I went out for a run to clear my head this morning so I probably won’t see you until later. Have a good day at practice, I’ll see you tonight.

At the bottom he had signed his name and added a little doodle of a fish. Leo smiled softly reading the words over again, he trailed a fingertip over the paper feeling the little indents from where Finn's pen had pressed into the paper. And when he wandered back over to his own room to get ready to head to practice Leo took that paper with him, he so very carefully tucked it into his nightstand wanting to keep it safe.

“There’s just a lot,” he finally finished.

Fabian nodded, seeming to catch some of the meaning behind those words, “Hey, you know what? How about after practice we head to the coffee shop and you can tell me about that lot that you have going on. Maybe an outside opinion can make it easier, or even just talking about it might help.”

Leo felt a little jolt of affection for his friend, after all Fabian had been the first one to welcome him to Gryffindor with open arms and had since remained as a constant support.

“That actually sounds really great.”

“Alright, well it’s a plan,” he said with a crooked grin, “but now we need to get out on the ice before Madam Maxine comes searching for us, cause believe me it would not be fun.”

“I’ll take your word for that,” Leo said with a laugh following Fabian out of the locker room and towards the ice. The two of them parted and began working through their warm ups, Leo melted into the motions stretching and loosening his shoulders, his hips, making sure his muscles were warm and ready to let him fly.

Once he had finished his warm ups Leo set to work on the second of the new jumps Madam Maxine had added to his program. The quads were challenging, that’s an understatement, Leo thought to himself as he pulled his body off the ice for the umpteenth time rubbing at the sore bruise forming on his ass cheek.

“Leo, come.”

Leo glanced up to see that Madame Maxine had glided elegantly onto the ice herself and was beckoning him over to her. Skating closer Leo blinked a bit in shock, he was always thrown when he came across someone taller than himself and his coach positively towered over him on her skates.

“You’re making progress,” she said, accent thick around the words.

“Thank you Madam,” he nodded.

“You still need to work on your expressions though, your face is completely blank when you skate. I can see the gears turning in your mind as you perform.”

“Uh… yeah, I’m still working on that,” Leo said, feeling a self-conscious flush rise in his cheeks. He still had no idea how to make his feelings come across in his performance, after all he had begun figure skating as a way of running and hiding from the feelings inside him, how was he supposed to simply just let them out for everyone to see?

“Have you settled on a composition? You should really be working with your music at this stage.”

“No, um not quite,” he said, brushing a bit of hair out of his face nervously. Leo knew that he should have picked his music a long time ago but for some reason anything that he listened to just didn’t feel right, it didn’t fit.

“Hmm, you have one more week to choose,” she said sternly, “if you have not selected a piece by then, you will not be ready to compete.”

“Alright, I’ll have something by then,” Leo replied, Madam Maxine simply nodded and gestured for him to continue his work before she skated away to speak to Gilderoy. With a little sigh Leo got back to it.

***

Leo groaned at the ache in his bones when he finally left the ice, making his way into the locker room on his blade guards. Sitting down on the bench to unlace his skates Leo snagged a water bottle and his phone from his skate bag only to realiz there were several new notifications waiting for him. He huffed a laugh at the name that popped up when he clicked on the message.

(Mighty Mouse): Video attached

Leo clicked on the video and suddenly Logan’s face was filling up his screen as he held the camera in front of himself.

“So, when I got to the rink for practice today, guess what I found waiting for me?” Logan’s voice fell from the phone's speaker filled with exasperation. He shifted the camera to what looked like his stall in the team’s locker room, pushed to the side was a pile of what looked like children’s hockey equipment in the Lions colors.

“This,” he said, turning the camera back to himself dramatically, “is the aftermath of what one James Potter considers a prank.” Logan reached down and grabbed something out of the pile and held up a ridiculously small jersey that had read Tremblay 10. “He came in here and replaced every single piece of gear in my stall with equipment meant for six year olds,” there was a pained look on Logan’s face as he said that but Leo couldn’t help the cackle that ripped through him at the thought of Logan walking into the locker room to find everything in his spot miniaturized.

“And then!” Logan continued on the video, “when I being a little confused as to where all my crap went, asked what was going on, this bastard had the audacity to look me dead in the eye and say ‘Oh, I thought these would fit you better, with how small you are and everything.’”

Leo completely lost it at that coupled with the crazed look on Logan’s face, he could barely breathe through his howling laughter.

“I swear, if he didn’t need them to play I would have taken his knee caps right then and there,” Logan zoomed the camera a little closer to his face and let his voice fall a bit to a whisper, “but I’ll get him back, believe me I’ll get him back.” Logan’s eyes glowed with mischief, “I’ll keep you posted,” he said with a wink just as the video ended.

Leo was still chuckling as he clicked the next attached video clip which looked like it was sent a little later than the first. Logan was now in what looked like a weight room, he had changed into a Lions logo muscle shirt, a pair of basketball shorts, and he had his curls tucked up under a snapback. Leo struggled to pull his focus onto the words coming from Logan’s mouth as his strong arms and shoulders were now in full view.

“So,” Logan started glancing over at the door to make sure no one was coming, “I’ve devised the perfect payback.” Logan grinned deviously at the camera and held up a little container that made Leo gasp when he recognized it, “well, if you don’t know, this here is citric acid and even just a tiny bit will turn something into a tart little surprise.” Logan chuckled and grabbed a bottle of blue Gatorade, “this is James’s, he’s pretty much the only one that drinks the blue. Honestly, he’s a little obsessive about it. Well, let’s see how much he likes it with… let’s say a hefty amount of citric acid in there.”

“Oh no,” Leo couldn’t stop the words from tumbling out as he watched Logan unscrew the cap and dump more citric acid than should ever be consumed into the Gatorade. He gave the bottle a shake and placed it over by someone’s gym bag.

“And now we wait,” he grinned and wagged his eyebrows at the camera suggestively as the clip cut out.

Leo didn’t hesitate for a second before clicking on the last video Logan had sent, from the timestamp only a few minutes ago. This clip was a little different, Logan was no longer holding the camera; he must have propped his phone up against an unused weight plate as Leo could now see the rest of the weight room. There were now several more people there using various machines, Leo’s eyes instantly snapped to where Logan was off to the side doing deadlifts, he had to stop himself from gasping aloud at the sight. Tearing his eyes away from Logan to glance at the others, he spotted none other than Sirius Black standing and chatting with a slightly shorter man with a mop of curly brown hair and thin wire framed glasses. The two were near where Logan had placed the contaminated Gatorade bottle. As they talked the man with glasses, who Leo assumed must be James, reached down and snagged the bottle. Leo cringed in anticipation as he watched James laugh carelessly at something Sirius said then finally bring the bottle up to his lips.

James had taken the biggest gulp imaginable of the sour liquid and Leo watched the exact moment his very soul left his body as it hit tongue. What happened next must have only been milliseconds but Leo still could see as James face first went green, then ghostly pale, his eyes wide and panicked before he sprayed the drink directly into Sirius’s face.

Leo was laughing so hard he wasn’t even making noise anymore just clutching his stomach and shaking from it as he watched James drop to his knees and spit trying to get the sour taste out of his mouth while Sirius was spluttering in disgust. In the background Leo could hear the rest of the guys in the weight room laughing just as hysterically. Suddenly, Logan's face came into frame just as the video ended.

“What was that about?”

Leo glanced up at Fabian who had settled next to him to unlace his own skates. Still trying to suppress his laughter, Leo just shook his head, “nothing, just a friend doing something stupid.”

“Yeah? You know, I think that was the first time I’ve seen you actually laugh like that.”

“That’s not true,” Leo immediately shot back, “I laugh all the time, it’s not my fault you aren’t as funny as you think you are.”

Fabian made a scandalized face and put a hand over his heart, “Ouch, that hurt. I am mildly offended. I am a hoot.”

Leo scoffed at that.

“And besides I’m talking like actually laughing, not that polite little chuckle you do.”

Just then Leo felt his phone buzz in his hand, when he glanced down he nearly choked at the image waiting for him. Logan had taken off his shirt, revealing his entire chest and torso glistening in a sheen of sweat leftover from his workout, his curls were fluffing out from under the edges of his snapback and he had his face scrunched up like he was laughing super hard. The caption ‘I Won’ was written across the image, in the background Leo could just see both James and Sirius glaring daggers at him.

“Is that this ‘friend’ that seems able to make you laugh uncontrollably?” Fabian asked leaning over to sneak a peek at the picture.

“Hmm, yeah,” Leo answered, his eyes still roving over the image of Logan on his screen, a soft smile pulled at his lips, “this is Logan,” he turned the screen a bit showing Fabian.

“Wait, Logan? As in Logan Tremblay? From the Lions?”

Leo simply nodded.

“From that look on your face I take it he has something to do with everything you’ve had going on lately?”

He nodded again.

Fabian chuckled and leaned down to pull off his skates, “Well, hurry up and get changed then you can tell me all about him, and Finn.”

Leo rolled his eyes fondly but slipped his phone back into his bag and began pulling off his own skates. It wasn’t long before the two of them, now clad in their street clothes, had made their way to Polaris Coffee claiming a cozy booth in the corner to chat.

Leo wrapped his hands around his drink, the heat bleeding through the ceramic into his palms. He couldn’t help but think back to the last time he had sat in this coffee shop, a different redhead smiling at him across the table. Fabian was almost uncharacteristically quiet, evidently waiting for Leo to feel comfortable enough to share the things that have been on his mind over the past weeks.

“So…” Leo began not entirely sure where to start.

“So…” Fabian mimicked raising his eyebrows teasingly, making Leo laugh. A bit of tension bled out of him as he took a sip of his coffee, he let the warm rich flavor wash over his tongue and calm his nerves.

“I think I’m falling in love with my roommate… and his best friend,” Leo said, jumping straight into the heart of the matter. And just like that it was like a dam breaking, words tumbled out of Leo’s mouth as he told Fabian about his time with Finn and Logan. He glossed over the parts about his past, but he told him about every subtle look, every gentle brush of fingertips, and sweet embrace. By the time he had run out of words Leo’s heart ached with the knowledge that he was utterly fucked by the intensity of his feelings for these two.

“You know,” Fabian started setting his mug down with a soft clunk on the table, “to me it sounds these people mean a lot to you, I’m honestly not seeing a problem here.”

Leo sighed and flopped back against the booth, his head knocking against the wooden part, “They really do, and well, I guess it’s not so much of a problem as just a bit complicated. I mean I like them, both of them. But Finn and Logan have this… thing between them. Like I get the vibe that they like each other, but then there’s moments with each of them that makes me think just maybe they like me. I just… I don’t know Fab.”

“Have you tried talking to them?” Fabian asked, “Like I know that sounds like the cliché answer but honestly, I think that’s really the only way you’ll be able to know how either of them are actually feeling. About you, and about each other.”

Leo snagged his mug off the table and took a sip before replying, “I know,” he sighed. “I know I need to talk to them. I don’t think it’ll be bad with Finn, from what I’ve seen so far he’s pretty open with his thoughts but Logan, Logan will be a challenge.”

Fabian shot him a sympathetic look at that, “Well, I’m always here for moral support,” he raised his mug in a little salute.

Leo chuckled and rolled his eyes but clinked his own mug against it before taking another sip of his drink.

Read on ao3

Chapter 22 Chapter 24

#sweater weather #coast to coast #leo knut #logan tremblay #lumosinlove #o'knutzy #finn o'hara #writing #figure skating #hockey #the scars of our past

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bubble-tae · 4 years

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BTS as Boyfriends

Namjoon

• Really just enjoys your company

• Being in the same room but doing two different things like folding laundry or reading, as long as you’re there

• No conversation is a stupid conversation

• Even the light ones hold a lot of value

• Has a lot of weird theories about people and the world

• Listening to him is fine, but being able to keep up an intellectual report is preferred

• On the flip side he’s such a goofball

• Gets confused about simple things like how to open the lock on the front door

• Spends a lot of time showing you cute baby animal videos

• Talks about the future often

• Marriage/kids/growing old/etc

• Always obsessed with some new quirky phone game

• If it’s multiplayer he will make you download it too

• Date nights are always just at home

• Why go out when you can stay in and play board games?

• I imagine you both reading in bed at night and talking about if the book sucked or not

• Intimacy is a private thing

• No PDA whatsoever, maybe hand holding but that’s it

• Your family/friends love him more than you, oops

Seokjin

• Y’all know the crackheadery that’s going to go on

• Tries to pull pranks but is bad at them

• Hypes you up as much as he hypes himself up

• “Waaaah look at this beautiful couple standing in the mirror, so stunning”

• Very good at turning your sour mood into a good one

• He’ll listen to your problems, helps you solve them, and then acts like an idiot until you feel better

• He’s everyone’s best friend so social situations with him are a breeze

• Likes double dates

• Sunday’s are lazy days but boy does he clean up nice for Friday night holy shit

• It’s all about food all the time. The journey is food. The destination is food.

• I’m serious if there’s no food at a party y’all are leaving

• Has a mega sweet side

• LOVES BEING LITTLE SPOON HES NOT ASHAMED

• Wakes you up with tickles and coffee/tea

• Somehow your pantry always has new bottles of wines in them????

• If you drink he wants to try a new one almost every night

• But is super picky, will dump half the bottle down the drain

• At the end of the day you’re each other’s number ones

Yoongi

• Soft baby

• Not super vocal about affection, more physical

• Playing with your hands, the sleeves of your sweater, etc

• Looks of affirmation

• You’ll be in a room of a group of friends and you’ll catch his gaze and give you a sweet smile

• Spoil you but in a nonchalant way

• Give you expensive jewelry without batting an eye

• But will get embarrassed giving you a small sentimental gift

• Sharing sweat pants, hoodies, beanies, and everything else that’s big n cozy

• Will blush when he says he loves you

• Which won’t be super often but really random, though he means it so fucking much

• Please give him cheek kisses, it’s his weakness

• Following asleep with his head on your lap is how he likes to spend his afternoons

• He’ll send you little beats he’s made just cause

• Will smile while watching you do something and then pretend he wasn’t when you turn to look at him

• 100% will compliment your mind more than your physical appearance but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t like the way you look

• Overall just a quiet boy full of love

Hoseok

• Y’all never stop talking

• Like living together is a nightmare cause you talk all night

• He’s hyper with most but is super gentle with you

• Like loud and bubbly in public but whispers cute things in your ear

• Will always come home from any store with things for you

• Like he’ll go out for eggs and come back with 10 of your favorite sweets

• Plays music REALLY LOUD

• Wants you to dance with him so he can spin you around the room

• A new album will drop from his favorite artist and he plays it at home and in the car and on his speakers and everywhere he can until you’re sick of it

• Wants to adopt every puppy he sees

• You’ll have to drag him out of the pet store

• Online shopping for clothes

• There are always packages showing up at the door, you think he has a problem

• But there’s stuff in there for you too so you don’t complain

• Tries to be romantic but doesn’t really get it ?

• Like lighting lots of lavender candles but almost burns the house down

Jimin

• TOUCHY

• omg he wants physical contact all the time

• Kissing your hands, cheeks, shoulders, any part of your exposed skin honestly

• Will always want his hair played with

• Like will let you do dumb little braids and ponytails or whatever you want for fun

• Wants to take you out all the time for dinners and dates

• You’ll probably start watching a bunch of series together but never finish any of them

• Brutally honest

• If he thinks an outfit doesn’t look good he won’t sugar coat it

• Ultimate hype man though when you’re rockin’ it

• Like mini fashion shows at the store the employees get so sick of you

• Spoils you with jewelry

• There’s no need to have all these diamond bracelets but he can’t help himself

• You’ll go on and on about something you really enjoy and even if he doesn’t get it he’ll listen

• If someone says anything bad about you he will sass them, no fists just harsh words lmao

• Jealous type so please give him lots of attention

Taehyung

• Words of affirmation

• Calls you cute no matter what you’re doing

• You could have the worst cold and he’d say your mucus-sneeze was adorable

• Weekend walks at the park

• ^Stopping to take a picture with every lizard/frog/insect you two see

• Going out for coffee but steals yours cause he likes it more

• Begs you to stay up to watch the stars

• Falls asleep before they even come out

• Whines about it the next day until you kiss it better

• Tries to cook for you but is so bad at it

• But you’ll eat his burnt steak cause you love him for trying

• I feel like he leaves sticky notes everywhere of just doodles??? They don’t even say anything he just gets bored

• Will laugh at your cheesy jokes

• Doesn’t know what to do when you’re mad like he just goes full baby mode

• When he’s upset he gets all pouty and just wants to be held

• ALMOST FORGOT ABOUT MUSEUM DATES

• Deep talks about art and the universe that you won’t remember the next day

• Maybe I’m hyper biased but just a good ole boy

Jungkook

• meme king

• Sends you everything he thinks is funny

• If you aren’t following his Twitter is it even love

• Anime watch parties

• Will make you dress up as dorky characters for Halloween

• Forgetful

• Like “oh shit it’s our anniversary??” But will make it up to you the next day

• He’s such a classic romantic

• Flowers and chocolate and heart shaped lockets

• The lockets are matching, of course

• Wants a secret couple tattoo

• Will cry during romantic movies

• Insistent on doing everything because he’s always babied and wants to be able to baby someone

• Gets absorbed into trying to learn a new skill so often that you can barely keep up

• Last week it was the cinematic history of horror and this week it’s managing stocks for beginners???

• Honestly loves it when you watch him play video games

• Will love it more if you get frustrated with how bad he is and take the controller/keyboard from him to show him how it’s done

• Doesn’t have to be older than him but loves strong/powerful women

#bts as boyfriends #bts reactions #bts as #jungkook x reader #bts x reader #taehyung reaction #jungkook reaction #jimin reaction #hoseok reaction #namjoon reaction #yoongi reaction #seokjin reaction #taehyung x reader #jimin x reader #hoseok x reader #namjoon x reader #yoongi x reader #seokjin x reader

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kaiparker-avengerssmut · 3 years

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CURSED: CHAPTER ONE

"He was a boy, She was a girl"

Kai Parker x OC!Mack Grace

Series synopsis: "We're both cursed, in a way."

We all know the story of Kai Parker, but he once lived in a very different life. Do you ever wonder what that life looked like?

Chapter summary: Mack meets a new guy at school, Kai Parker

Warnings: swearing?

Masterlist | Series Masterlist

Mackenzie pulled open the car door and climbed into the passenger seat, leaning over the middle console and planting a sweet kiss on Ben's lips. He smiled into the kiss and pulled away.

"Morning babe." He said happily.

"Morning." She smiled back.

Mack dropped her bag by her feet and sat back, pulling her seatbelt across her body and plugging it in. Ben revved the engine and began driving off in the direction of the school, arguably way to fast.

The whole way to school Ben hammered on about how annoying the freshmans would be and how he was so ready to be the quarterback this year. Mack nodded along and made sounds of agreement every now and then, but she really didn't care much for Ben's popular boy life. Mack was the quiet girl who got good grades and sat on her own at lunch. She only went to parties and attended football games so she would appear the 'perfect girlfriend' as Ben said.

As they pulled into the school parking lot, Ben turned to her and cupped her face, pulling her in for a long kiss that was only really to give everyone else a show. And that made her stomach drop. They got out the car and instantly she felt Ben's arm wrap around her waist, pulling her into his side tightly.

As they wandered through the halls everyone waved and said hi to Ben, completely ignoring Mack. Ben received the wanting stares of girls and some claps on the back from some of the guys on the football team. As they reached her locker Mack stopped and unlocked it, shoving her books inside and grabbing her sketch book.

"I still don't know why you even bother with those, you're not good enough to get a scholarship." Ben said bitterly, motioning to her sketch book. Mack furrowed her brows and slammed her locker shut, charging off to her first period class. She heard Ben call after her but ignored him, knowing it'd come back to bite her later.

The head splitting noise of the clock ticking filled her ears, the screeching of chair legs against the scratchy floor and the constant first-day-back chatter of her classmates slowly driving Mack insane. She'd been in the room for less than five minutes and she was already ready to self combust just to get out of this hell-hole. The graphite gilded across the page as she drew, sketching god knows what and doodling all over her sketch book pages. Someone coughed obnoxiously above her and Mack instantly looked up, coming face to face with a super hot boy she'd never seen before.

"Is this seat taken?" He spoke with a hint of cockiness, gesturing to the empty seat beside Mack. She shook her head and watched as he made his way round and pulled out the chair, dumping his bag next to the table leg and plopping down into his seat, leaning back and crossing his ankles. He looked over to Mack and her head snapped back down, her attention back on her sketches.

The teacher walked in and Mack quickly placed her textbook over her sketches, hiding them and pretending to pay attention. In actual fact, she already knew what the teacher was talking about, the droning sound of his voice like a white noise.

About half way through the lesson Mack felt a tap on her shoulder. She looked to where it came from only to see the boy from before studying her intently.

"So what's the deal with you? I don't think I've heard you mutter a single word since I've seen you." He asked, slightly confused. Mack shook her head and looked down at the desk before looking back up again, her sight instantly catching the boy's captivating blue-grey eyes.

"Who are you? I've never seen you before." She asked shyly, speaking more than she'd like to. The boy grinned widely before offering his hand for her to shake.

"Kai, Kai Parker. And I just moved here last weekend. My twin sister is also in our grade." Mack nodded and kept sketching, hoping he'd leave her alone now. But he didn't. "So how long have you lived here? What's your name?" He continued. Mack sighed.

"All my life, and I'm Mack Grace." She said almost too quietly. The sound of his voice made Mack rest her head in her hands and try to tune him out, but nothing worked.

"Mack? As in Mackenzie? That's an awful long name. Do you go by a nickname? Mack - no, too many people call you that, I bet it's what you tell everyone to call you. Oh, oh what about Kenzie? Actually, no. Too long. Ohhhh I know! I'll call you Kenz. There we go, short, sweet and catchy. Nice to meet you Kenz." Kai babbled on, not realising Mack had completely ignored him.

She'd just met the guy and she already hated him. Mack felt awful but he was just so annoying. Hot, but annoying. The rest of the lesson continued like that, Kai chatting incessantly in Mack's ear as she tried to get the work done so she could go back to her sketching and ignoring him.

"Those are soooo good." Kai basically whispered as he leant over Mack's shoulder with wide eyes, entranced as her pencil moved over the page. She snapped the book shut to stop him from looking and he turned away, muttering an offended, "O-kay." And whistling while rolling his eyes. He was staring at just the page she'd done that lesson, which was now almost completely covered in sketches of people in their class, from all the angles Mack could see them from her seat. She rolled her eyes and kept drawing, letting her long hair fall as a curtain to hide herself from him.

The sound of the bell was like music to her ears and Mack instantly stood, scooping her books into her arms and charging out the class and down the hall. With her eyes kept trained down, Mack didn't realise someone was in front of her until she collided with them. They both fell to the ground and Mack's sketches were littered all over the floor, pieces of loose paper floating down around them. She scrabbled to her knees and crawled around aimlessly, picking up the pages and stuffing them back into her book. She went to grab the last page but the other girl got there first, Mack's eyes drifting up to meet hers.

"S-Sorry." Mack said shyly, taking the page from the mystery girl and slowly standing up. The other girl joined her, giving Mack a warm smile.

"Don't worry about it, it was my fault. I'm Jo." She said reassuringly, offering her hand to Mack, who hesitantly took it before shaking.

"I'm Mack." Jo smiled at her and let Mack's hand go, stepping back slightly and speaking up again.

"Do you know where Mrs Price's class room is? I'm totally lost and totally new here." Jo admitted bashfully, looking at Mack with pleading eyes. Mack nodded and motioned for Jo to follow her before they both walked down the hall, side-by-side.

"You don't talk much." Jo observed - not in a rude way though - as they approached the door to the classroom. Mack nodded and opened the door, letting Jo walk in first. She thanked Mack before heading inside and picking two seats at the back for her and Mack.

"I was never really listened to, so I stopped talking." Mack said simply, sitting down and folding her arms over the desk. Jo nodded slowly and turned her attention to the front of the class, where Mrs Price was introducing herself to the class.

As the lesson went on Mack felt as if she could sleep, she hated American History. It was so dull and useless, not to mention Mack could probably correct Mrs Price in every 'fact' she told. Finally they were set some work and a sheet landed on her desk. Mack picked it up and examined it, just a boring old worksheet. Mack turned to Jo, hoping to find out more about her.

"So you said you were new?" Mack began. Jo made a noise of confirmation before elaborating.

"We only moved here last weekend, family of 10. I have a twin brother and a bunch of younger siblings." Mack nodded and furrowed her brows in thought.

"A twin?" She pushed.

"Yeah, he's a good brother but is extremely annoying." Jo chuckled. That's when it clicked.

"By any chance is your twin Kai?" Mack asked, suddenly realising the resemblance between the two. Jo nodded and wrote something down.

"You've met him?" Jo said while writing.

"Yeah, I sat next to him in first period. Does he ever shut up?" Mack said with a laugh at the memory of Kai chatting in her ear for the whole hour. Jo laughed too.

"Sometimes. If he's eating or-" Jo cut herself off quickly before she said too much. Mack tilted her head to the side in confusion.

"Or what?" She asked.

"Oh, um, or if he's listening to m-music." Jo answered quickly. Mack nodded uncertainly and begun her worksheet too.

Mack slowly wandered out to the car park from her last period lesson, really not wanting to spend the whole ride with Ben, but knowing she had no other way home. She walked up to Ben's car and saw him leaning against the car door, arms folded over his chest.

"Hey babe." He smirked, pulling her into a kiss. Ugh, Mack hated the name 'babe' but decided to say nothing. She smiled and said hi back quietly before opening her car door and plopping down on the seat, leaving her bag on the floor at her feet. She began humming a tune, tapping her nails lightly against the armrest as she did so. Mack looked over at Ben as she felt him sit down, shutting his door with a thud and putting the keys in the ignition. She turned her attention to her window, watching as couples walked by holding hands and friends gossiped about their first day back after winter break.

"Please stop humming, it's almost as bad as listening to you talk about fucking art scholarships." Ben snapped, huffing frustratedly and pulling out the parking space. Mack stopped and frowned, looking out the window again and ignoring whatever shitty music he put on.

Her mind drifted as they drove home, thinking about her day. Meeting Jo might've been the best thing to happen to her, seeing as she was a potential best friend. Mack and Jo really clicked, they just kind of understood each other. After their second period had ended, Mack had asked Jo to sit with her at lunch and she agreed.

The other person she thought about was Kai. God, Kai. She new he was annoying, a typical grade-A asshole and extremely attractive. She knew she should stay away, and that she shouldn't think about a guy as attractive as him when she had a boyfriend, but she didn't care. He was probably the most talkative person she'd ever met and also the most annoying, but Mack felt drawn to him, strangely.

"Mack, Mack!" Ben repeated, waving his hand in front of her face. Mack snapped out her thoughts and looked over at Ben, who didn't look too happy. "We're here." Is all he said, gesturing to Mack's small house behind him. She fake smiled and thanked him for the ride, giving him a chaste kiss on the lips before grabbing her bag and getting out the car.

"Hey Dad." Mack Shouted as she walked through the door, dropping her bag on a chair and walking into the small kitchen and reaching for a glass from the cupboard. She filled it with water and gulped it all down, setting the glass down on the counter before sitting at the small dining table and opening her bag.

"Hey Wolfy." Mack's Dad smiled, ruffling her hair as he walked past. "How was school?" He asked.

"Good I guess, I think I made a new friend." Mack said happily, pulling out her textbooks and starting her math homework.

"Good good." Her dad said, sitting down on the plush old armchair that was fading from age. He picked up his book and put on his glasses, opening it up and peering over the top at Mack. "Your sister has the night shift tonight and I'm meeting Tony for a meeting about the company at eight, so you have the house to yourself tonight." He said before redirecting his eyes to his book.

Mack's dad helped run a company with his best friend Tony, but it wasn't very big. They struggled with money so her sister wasn't in college, so she already worked at a local business and often took on an extra night shifts to help with money. Mack worked a weekend job, but spent lots of her time on her school work and drawing. She was insanely smart, getting straight A's in every subject with almost no effort, but she'd never get a scholarship off of that alone. The only thing she had a shot at was an art scholarship, otherwise she wouldn't get to go to college at all.

Mack looked up at the sound of the phone and so did her dad, but before she could answer it he got there first. He listened for a moment before holding out the phone for Mack to take.

"It's Ben." He said before walking off.

"Hey are you doing anything tonight?" Ben asked. Mack chewed her lip, contemplating her answer before deciding he'd be able to tell if she lied.

"No, Kim is taking the night shift and my dad is going out at eight." She said, still not sure if she should've just said she was busy.

"Perfect. I'll come over for eight thirty?" Ben said.

Mack gulped. This would be the first time she was home alone with Ben and for some reason the thought scared her rather than excited her.

"See you at eight thirty."

#smut #elena gilbert #image #images #stefan salvatore #the vampire diaries #chris wood #damon salvatore #kol mikaelson #tvd #kai parker image #kai parker x reader #kai parker smut #kaiparker #kai Parker #kai Parker fanfic #tvd fanfic

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irwinkitten · 4 years

Text

got lucky | c.h

requested by anon: ok so for the bi!reader concept: last year i ended my relationship w this girl the main reason was because she was really insecure and jealous especially about me being bisexual like anytime i would talk to a guy she would just get so upset about it and she would make such gross biphobic comments and at the time i had so much internalised biphobia that i tried to convince myself i was gay n stayed in the relationship longer than i should have because i rly liked her i guess lol anyways (1/4) we ended and a while afterwards i started seeing this guy who i’d known of for ages (friends of friends type situation) but we just never really talked before or hung out but from the first date we clicked and the sex was crazy good like the type of sex were ur ditching ur vibrators cuz he’s that good lmao so one weekend we went to this party together and of course she is also there, i was so surprised and i could see her eyeing us the whole night, so when she came over i was anxious af (2/4) and this guy knew i was bi! it was no secret, i worked really hard to accept myself! so she comes over and she deadass goes “are you straight now? i knew you would end up with a man!” and she’s all smug but also hurt and im standing there like what the fuck and THEN this dumb man goes “ha guess the sex is so good i made her straight again” and i’m literally about to cry over how gross the whole interaction is and im so shocked i can’t even defend myself, i dumped him that night obviously (3/) last messgae: so basically can you pls do a redo of the gross situation where instead of being with that dumb guy its with calum and he is so protective n sweet n NORMAL n encourages u to stand up for urself about bisexuality / your sexuality, because what happened to me happens too often and its disgusting and gross and no one deserves that!! only if u feel comfortable/inspired tho, no pressure!! love u laura, thank u for creating such a safe space for all the queer babies it means a lot 💘 notes: i kinda enjoyed writing this one esp for my sweet anon baby. i love u and i hope this is everything you wanted ♥ warnings: biphobia, implications of emotional abuse

word count: 3.2k

donate to my ko-fi here

“Hey what’cha doing sweets?” Calum’s voice pulled you from your musings, your hand idly tracing patterns against the paper but the pen remaining on the desk. You wrenched your thoughts from the spiral you seemed to have fallen down, a smile crossing your lips as you felt your heart flutter at the sight of him.

“Nothin’. Just thinking.” You finally replied as he pulled up one of the spare chairs next to you, the bustling activity of the coffee shop falling into your background noise as his thigh pressed against yours.

“Really? Normally you doodle when you’re just thinking.” He countered with ease and your eyes dropped to the paper, noticing that the pen remained where you’d placed it when you first sat down. Subconsciously you must’ve realised that the route your thoughts had gone were not suitable to put down on paper, your fingers picking up the pen and mind falling blank immediately.

“Oh.” You breathed before placing the pen back down and packing away the pad and pen.

“What’s running through your head, doll?” Calum’s voice was quiet and concerned, you shrugged.

“Just, a lot on my mind is all. You’re not my keeper just because we’ve slept together.” You admitted quietly and he frowned before picking up his bag and for a sinking second you thought he was going to walk off, but instead, he took your bag from your hands and slung it over his shoulder.

He looked back at you expectantly and you sighed before standing up, leaving the coffee shop with him, your eyes on the floor as you fell into step next to him.

“Your place or mine?”

“E’s gonna be home and I don’t want to hear them rant about me bringing people back.” You muttered and Calum nodded.

“I think Ash is out. He’ll probably head out to Luke’s if I show up with you.” At his smirk, you rolled your eyes fondly before shoving him towards the bus stop. His indignant “hey!” was only ignored as you two waited for the bus, his arm slung over your shoulders.

Selfishly, you leaned into his touch, trying to ignore the fact that your stomach was doing flips at his touch alone.

The bus journey was a quiet ten minutes, but Calum seemed to understand that you weren’t willing to talk with so many people around, so he was content to just keep you close, and you were unwilling to pull away until his stop came up.

When you reached his shared house with Ashton, you noted that the car was gone from the driveway and Calum smirked.

“Looks like he’s out. C’mon.” His hand tucked around yours and pulled you inside. And for a second you wondered if you could distract him with sex, but then the guilt appeared and you could feel the tears of frustration appear as your thoughts swirled and you felt dizzy.

Calum had stepped ahead, turning to see you stood leaning against the closed door, head in your hands and he knew something was wrong. Stepping back to you, he dropped your bags and took your hand in his, pulling you upstairs to his room and your stomach twisted uncomfortably.

“Cal I-”

“I’m not suggesting that.” He muttered. You fell silent at that and as he pulled you into his room, you felt unsure, but he gave you no chance to really deny him as he crawled into bed before opening his arms out to you.

“Cal.”

“I know you. You don’t do emotional stuff well but I’m here for a cuddle and an ear if you need it.” You fell into the embrace easily, your head resting on his chest as his arms wrapped around your shoulders, his lips finding your temple as you finally felt something in you snap, the surge of emotions overwhelming and frighteningly vivid.

“I keep telling myself that I never was a lesbian, that I still found men attractive but Poppy made me feel like having that attraction was stupid since I was dating her and that I was a lesbian and it’s so fucking confusing because I like you, but I can hear her voice screeching that I’m not right, that I’m a lesbian or faking it or a freak.” And for the first time since you left Poppy, you cried.

Calum had been waiting for this. When the split had happened, you’d been ready for it, you’d already left her mentally, but this was what he knew you needed. He knew that the relationship with her had been toxic, but you’d never revealed the extent of her behaviour.

His heart broke.

“Just because you like both men and women does not mean you should feel so guilty over your sexuality. There’s a B in LGBT for a reason, doll. That’s you. You’re bisexual and you should be proud of that, not ashamed because some bitch with a control issue couldn’t handle the fact that you liked more than women.”

You found yourself gripping his shirt with your fists as you pressed your face into his chest, trying to stem the tears that seemed relentless. But Calum held his silence whilst you got it out of your system, knowing that you needed to get this off your chest.

“I’m sorry.” You finally got out, but he simply shushed you.

“She was a shitty person with an attitude to show. You shouldn’t apologise for the bitch.” His words were simple but it gave you a breath of ease, pulling away as hands rubbed your shoulders gently.

He was definitely too good to you, but he was there for you regardless and you were certain that you loved him for that.

“There’s gonna be a party on the other side of town in a couple of weeks. Ash took over the old Firefly down on Hartley. He’s revamping before opening the bar to the public. You fancy going?” And you smiled at the gentle distraction he was offering.

“We get at least a free drink if we show up, right?” And Calum laughed as he kissed your temple.

“He wouldn’t say no to me. Or you. In fact, I’m almost certain he’s expecting me to do full introductions on that night since Luke and Mike will be there with the others and their girls.” You rolled your eyes.

“It’s not like I went to school with Luke or anything.” Came your sarcastic retort and Calum laughed as the two of you settled for the evening.

“Pretty sure Luke last saw you when you started dating Poppy. He’s put two and two together but he won’t say anything unless you mention it. Even then he knows it’s not his place.” Your heart seemed to swell another size in affection for Luke.

“You’re making it difficult for me to not fall in love with you Cal. Good dick, you know how to use those lips and fingers of yours, you make me feel like I belong and you respect boundaries without me having to ask.” You finally muttered and Calum gave you an almost wistful smile.

“You may have been with Poppy but that didn’t stop me from being friends with you. You’re someone I’ve genuinely cared about from day one. Not gonna chuck that away because of who you are. Plus growing up with my mom and sister almost made certain I’d be in touch with my feminine side.” He teased but the sincerity and understanding in his tone eased your shoulders.

Your features softened at the admittance and you pressed a kiss to his cheek.

“Then I definitely got lucky to have you in my life at least, falling in love or not.”

—

When the day of the party rolled around, you felt sick with nerves and you couldn’t understand why.

When Calum rolled up to pick you up—he was driving to Luke’s who lived closest to the bar and you’d both get a ride back to yours before he picked up his car the following morning—he could see the nerves and the grimace on his face spoke volumes.

“What?” You all but demanded when you were debating outfits. He’d been sitting on the bed watching, but got up and held his hands out to you.

You took them hesitantly. His thumbs almost immediately started to soothe across the back of your hands to help relax you.

“Word has gotten around that Poppy is planning to show up. We haven’t exactly been quiet about our relationship, but I didn’t think she’d pull something like this.” And your stomach churned uncomfortably.

“We’re still going. Ashton promised free drinks and we’ll be in the VIP area right?” You checked and Calum nodded.

“Ashton has already told the bouncers that she’s not allowed near the VIP section. They’re checking and rechecking the lists to make sure she isn’t on one of them.” He explained and you let out a breath of air.

“Okay. It’ll be fine. It’s being handled and I’ve got you. Now which outfit do you think I should wear?” He studied your face for a second before a smile broke across his lips.

“The dark purple with the deep plunge. Is it wrong of me to flaunt in her face what she lost?” And you laughed as you kissed him.

“I mean, yes. But I also know that you want to show me off properly now that we’ve got things really settled.” You murmured and he grinned back unabashedly.

It was still an uphill battle, but he’d given you a lot to think about. And after gentle convincing, you’d found an LGBT friendly therapist who helped you process your thoughts. It helped you come to terms with accepting the toxic relationship that you’d been in but also it highlighted how beneficial Calum had been as a friend and confidant.

It also gave you the courage to ask Calum out officially, wanting to be with him entirely and not just in the evenings.

He took that in his stride and things shifted once more between the two of you. When you opened up to him about some of your sessions, you knew that your trust had been well placed because he never indicated anything to his friends and so you were never subjected to pitying stares or glares.

You were almost sure that you’d fall in love with him faster than you fell for Poppy.

The drive to Luke’s was filled with your nerves. You hadn’t seen Luke in years and you were also meeting his two other friends, Ashton and Michael as well as their partners.

“Ashton’s excited to finally meet you and stop telling me to be careful when I go to yours.”

Despite Calum living with Ashton, your schedules never seemed to match and more often than not, Calum could be found at your place, a small sanctuary from your hectic lives.

Ashton never begrudged that time you shared together, but Calum had mentioned a few times about how snappy he was being on the subject.

“He’ll chill when he realises I’m not out to break your heart or steal something.” You muttered with a chuckle. Calum snorted in return as he pulled into Luke’s driveway.

Your nerves return full force as he pulls you to the front door and steps in like he lives there.

“Hey fuckers, anyone about?” He called through and was met with calls of confirmation, another yell following that they were in the dining room. Your fingers squeezed Calum’s tightly and he didn’t hesitate to return it, his thumb soothing across the skin on the back of your hand.

“Look who it is!” A voice crowed loudly as he stepped into the dining room, followed by loud calls of greetings.

There was a flurry of introductions and you felt like the spotlight was being shone on you, under scrutiny from his best friends gazes once they had greeted their friend and Calum had introduced you. Or re-introduced you in Luke’s case.

“Well c’mon, the last time I saw you we were leaving school. What’s been happening to you?” Luke finally asked, indicating to the seat next to him. A small smile graced your lips as you sat down, Calum falling into the seat next to you as you shrugged.

“Life I guess? It’s been definitely more interesting with the different jobs and moving about. Building up a social life again.” Luke’s face filled with a frown at that.

Michael came in next.

“Building up a social life? Did you not have one?” His words held an innocent curiosity, yet you felt yourself hesitate.

“My ex was controlling to the point that I couldn’t do anything without their permission. They managed to make me believe that no one really wanted me around and I lost touch with old friends, like Luke.” You glanced to the side and he was frowning.

The others held varying degrees of stunned shock or disapproval.

“Well then he was a cunt.” Michael muttered and your eyes refused to meet theirs at the assumptions. Luke stayed quiet but his hand rested on your knee, squeezing it. You shot him a gentle smile in return.

“Well it’ll be good to have you back in our lives. Especially with these two knuckleheads.” He nodded at Ashton and Michael who immediately protested and you laughed.

It felt like you’d known them for years as you all had a few shots. Ashton, despite being the owner of the bar, wasn’t worried about turning up with his friends. He’d already explained to his staff that he’d be around for the rest of the night once he arrived and he’d told the small groups he’d be here and there.

After a handful of shots, the group of you made your way to the bar, your arm linked with Calum’s. There were separate conversations happening between you all, their girlfriends including you on their pamper night whilst the boys discussed a possible games night for all of you.

When you arrived at the club, you saw the queue of people waiting to get in and the subsequent groans from the line as the bouncer let you in, no questions asked.

Ashton guided the group of you to the VIP section and the music was still loud but you could still hear each other talking. You were chatting away with Luke’s girlfriend, arm still linked with Calum’s as Ashton disappeared to get drinks.

Calum pulled your attention away briefly, his lips by your ear.

“I’ve spotted her. She’s not seen us yet so don’t worry.” You barely nodded, acknowledging his words as you listened in, fighting to keep your nerves down.

The night continued and you were all a few drinks deep. Calum’s arm had barely left your waist all night as you talked and danced and drank. You’d been welcomed into his group of friends with an ease you never realised existed.

You’d deliberately not tried to seek out Poppy, silently praying that the universe would comply. But as the group of you stood out in the smokers area, huddled together under a heating lamp, your stomach sank as she stepped out, her eyes narrowing on you.

“Fuckin’ knew it!” You could feel the alarm in your face as you stepped back into Calum, his arm going around you protectively.

“Poppy, you’re drunk.” You felt curious gazes from your new friends, but you didn’t spare them a glance.

“You break up with me and go running to his arms, I knew you weren’t a fuckin lesbian. Pretending to try it out? Just another straight girl seeking attention. Fucking freak.” She snapped and your stomach sank.

“Get it through your thick head that she’s bisexual.” Calum snapped in your defence, earning a glare from Poppy. But Calum didn’t shrink from the glare, your glance to his face confirmed he was giving her his own. You were mildly impressed that she didn’t back down instantly.

“She’s a fuckin liar! Years of my life wasted on this bitch.” She spat at your feet and you took in a deep breath.

“You don’t get to control me anymore, Poppy. I’ve liked both men and women, but you never liked that because it meant that I had more chances of leaving you. And I wished I’d have left you sooner. Calum certainly thought so.”

“Of course you fucked the first man to pay you any attention.” Your heart sank once more at her declaration and you felt your mind fall into the old trap that you’d fought with for so long.

“No she never. In fact she slept with a few girls long before she slept with me. But I was her best friend as she tried to deal with the mess you created in her mind.” Calum snapped back. You felt your heart swell for him.

Poppy stepped forward, her hand raised but then Ashton stepped in front of you.

“Get out. You’re no longer welcome in this bar.” He made a gesture and security slowly made their way over.

“She shouldn’t be fucking welcome!” Poppy yelled back, but Ashton held firm.

“She is my friend. You are not. Get. Out.” When the bouncer rested a hand on her arm, she shrugged it off and stormed away. Your entire body was trembling.

“So that was the ex, huh?” Michael commented and you could feel your hands trembling as you nodded. “Why didn’t you correct me?” Calum spoke up for you as his hands took yours.

“It’s been a battle for her. Poppy had convinced her she was a lesbian, that she was wrong for having any attraction to men. In Poppy’s world, either your gay, lesbian or straight. Being bisexual isn’t acceptable in her eyes.” Calum’s arms wrapped around you and you stood there, holding onto him for dear life.

“Well that makes two of us then.” Michael’s casual comment had your knees go weak and you let out a weak laugh.

“Thank you Ash.” You finally murmured when you pulled away from Calum. Ashton didn’t hesitate to wrap his arms around you in a warm hug that was both comforting and reassuring.

“Hey, you’ve been the best thing for my best mate. And you were friends with Luke once before. I’ve definitely got your back. And I get why you didn’t say anything and don’t hold that against you.” He muttered and you breathed a sigh of relief before returning to Calum’s embrace.

“More drinks or are we gonna go back to Luke’s?” And you shook your head.

“Let’s stay. I’m not gonna let her ruin it,” you leaned forwards so your lips were by his ear as the others went inside, “also I want to see if we can christen the bar in one of the toilets.” You breathed. Calum groaned as his grip around you got tighter and he pulled you in for a kiss that promised more.

“Oh you’re so fucked sweetheart. Especially since I know where the individual lips are and they aren’t attended by anyone.” You held back a moan at that thought before pulling away, your hand in his.

“Dance first?” And the innocence in your tone made him laugh as he followed behind you willingly.

“Menace.” The term was laced with affection as he caught up to you, kissing the spot just below your ear.

You simply grinned in return as you pulled him onto the dance floor, Poppy long forgotten as he danced with you.

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disappearinginq · 4 years

Note

for the writers ask thing: (3) What is that one scene that you’ve always wanted to write but can’t be arsed to write all of the set-up and context it would need? (consider this permission to write it and/or share it anyway) AND (6) What character do you have the most fun writing?

Hilariously, the first one is a Prodigal Son scene between the team (specifically JT) and I just wanted a...merger? scene between beginning season JT & Malcolm, where they just like to harass one another, to basically an embodiment of the Kink!Tomato explanation. I like that they’re not cozy with each other, but they go from purposefully hurtful banter to just off beat teasing, and I had a scene where that was spelled out. I wonder if I can find it...or possibly actually getting around to writing the fic that i wrote three lines of dialogue for when @rohanrider3 gave me a prompt for it. As for most fun -ooo. Hmm. Snarky ones. And family relations. I think one of my favorite things to write was between Bellamy and Kane for Left Behind, despite not watching the show for years now, and that fic sits languishing in writing purgatory.

And I really, really love to write unexpectedly smart/badass characters (or make canon characters into unexpectedly smart/badass characters, because no one can prove I’m wrong). Edit: FOUND THE PRODIGAL SON THING.

“No, JT, really, I want to know,” Malcolm snapped, holding his hand out – steadier than JT could remember ever seeing it – jabbing accusatorily at him. “What exactly was I supposed to do? Hmm? If you know, I’d love to hear it, because I haven’t got a fucking clue. I’m a bit of an outlier, you see – people aren’t good with things they can’t categorize. They want to stuff you in a box whether you fit or not, and I’m guessing as a Hispanic male combat veteran, there’s a couple boxes people like to tick off for you, right? Suicidal. PTSD. Temper problems. Into drugs and alcohol. Anyone ever tell you you’re a ticking time bomb, just waiting to go off?”

JT didn’t answer – it was rhetorical and both of them knew it. Veterans today had a rate of suicide comparable to WWII, and instead of trying to curb the trend by digging deeper to find out why, Washington just swept it under the rug – denied treatment, refused disability claims, shoved people out on the street like Monday morning garbage. The only time people cared enough to even Google the statistics were November 11th and the last Monday in May.

“Oh look,” Malcolm barreled on. “Finally, something we have in common. We don’t like it when people try to shove us in boxes to make us something we’re not. But you know what? You’re at least not alone. You can feel it, and it can seem it, but you’re not – one point three million people in our military, odds are at least one of them feels like you. Can understand what you’ve been through, why you are the way you are. Wanna know how many serial killers had kids? Huh?”

Malcolm’s pointed finger became a splay of five.

“Five. In the last half century, with their kids still alive today – five. Six kids total. Ted Bundy’s daughter has vanished so completely not even the FBI knows who or where she is. Dennis Rader’s kids? His daughter fucking wrote him a letter forgiving him for what he did and that she ‘hoped to see him in Heaven one day’ and that she still loved him, and her brother told the newspapers that despite killing ten people in utterly horrific ways, he was a good dad. And nobody comes close to the Surgeon’s body count – maybe the ones he was convicted for, but not what he’s suspected of.”

“Look, Bright, I – ” JT tried to cut in. Bright’s glare stopped him midsentence.

“No, no, no, no, you don’t get to derail this train now,” Malcolm snapped. “Not when you’re the one who keeps looking at me like I’m only one conviction away from being Martin Whitly’s sequel because I’m good at my job. And you know what, literally anyone else who is a profiler, or a criminal psychologist, or even a forensic psychologist is supposed to try and interpret the criminal mind, but I don’t see you avoiding Dr. Tanaka. My father was the monster, not me. I was fucking ten years old when I turned him in. All the other Serial Killer Kids were adults when the police found out their fathers were killers, but I don’t see the FBI keeping tabs on them, waiting for them to pick up where Dear Old Dad left off. So why me? Because I annoy you? Because it bothers you that because I can’t solve my own problems, I try to solve others? I have twenty three lives that were cut short because of the Surgeon that I have to make up for, and yeah, there’s only so many ways I can atone for my father’s sins.”

JT wasn’t the only one who noticed the change in Malcolm’s voice as he almost choked on the word father in relation to Martin, his already pale features turning slightly green at the mention of being related to the Surgeon.

“Since you seem to have all the answers, why don’t you clue the rest of us in? Hmm?” Malcolm threw his hands wide to encompass the whole room. “What should I be doing that would make you believe that I am not my father’s son?”

Dani shifted in her chair, looking like she’d rather be anywhere but here, but gave him a side-eyed glare that clearly stated she was actually on Bright’s side for this one. Gil hadn’t said a word the entire argument, but then, if he’d known Malcolm since the day he’d turned in Martin, then he’d probably heard it more than once.

Malcolm must’ve said it more than once, because that was a lot of statistics to rattle off that fast.

JT sighed, picking up a pen and tapping it against the notepad just to have something to do with his hands as he met Malcolm’s eyes.

“It’s not what you think,” JT said. “It…” he considered his next words, weighing the sound of them in his head before he said them aloud. “I think you’re so good at this, it’s killing you.”

Whatever response Malcolm had braced himself for – because that’s exactly what he was doing, keeping his hands firmly over his chest, hunching slightly like he was expecting a physical blow – that wasn’t it. The kid’s eyebrows almost shot into his hairline before they narrowed back in suspicion, and JT couldn’t really blame him.

“I knew these guys – combat guys, all of them. Saw some serious shit over in Syria. Afghanistan. Iraq. You name the shit storm, they were in it, boots on the ground. They didn’t fare much better than you. Nightmares. Depression. The twitchy hands. The mania. The insomnia. Insisting they were fine.” He absently let the pen in his hand doodle across the notepad, and he watched as Malcolm’s gaze couldn’t help but flicker towards the movement more than keep JT’s gaze. “Hyper vigilant. Some of them saw counselors, but you know how that goes…seeing them doesn’t mean they followed their advice. Sometimes it’s just a band aid on a bullet hole. A couple of them got jobs where they thought they could do some good – use those skills, those…habits, at work. Thought it gave them an edge. Kept them vigilant.”

JT clicked the pen, putting it down as he leaned forwards, his elbows on the table, interlocking his fingers as he caught Malcolm’s piercing gaze. “It burned them out. One put a gun in his mouth Christmas Eve in his basement while his kids were asleep upstairs. The other one stepped in front of train during the morning commute. The other one gave himself a heart attack – he’s the one that lived. And you may not believe me, Bright, but I don’t want that to be you on the evening news. You may be good at this job, but I think it’s bad for you. Trying to make up for things you had no control over, keeping some tally in that head of yours of if the life you saved is equal to the one he took. That’s not healthy, and if your stupid habit of haring off after murderers without backup doesn’t kill you, then this life will. I don’t think you’re anything like the Surgeon, because if you were, this wouldn’t bother you at all, instead of eating you alive from the inside out.”

The room was quiet enough you could hear a pin drop.

Dani shot him her half smile reserved for special occasions and people she particularly approved of. Gil’s expression was still hidden by his hand over his mouth, but JT realized he wasn’t looking at him – probably hadn’t been for most of the conversation.

He was watching Malcolm.

Malcolm who was completely silent.

He didn’t think Bright did silent. He pretty much non-stop jabbered on, even when he wasn’t supposed to. Perhaps even especially when he wasn’t supposed to.

And now that piercing blue stare was levelled straight at him, and JT fought the urge to fidget under the intensity of it.

Malcolm’s eyes widened slightly, a funny little gasp that would’ve made more sense coming from someone who’d just had ice water dumped down their back passing between suddenly parted lips as he pulled his head back as if physically slapped. “You’re…not lying.”

JT frowned, glancing over at Gil who was still zeroed in on Malcolm. The older man hadn’t decided if this was good or bad, which put JT even more on edge.

“No, I’m not lying. Why would I lie about something like that?” He tried to catch Gil’s attention without getting even more of Malcolm’s, but the older detective ignored him.

#asks answered #games we play #prodigal son #prodigal son fic #sort of #one day maybe #malcolm bright #jt tarmel

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klaineccfanficlibrary · 4 years

Text

sour undertones - klaine oneshot

AN: this work is based off of a piece of fanart by animateglee

words: 1723

summary: Kurt finds Blaine’s diary and is surprised at what he finds there. Blaine thought it was good at the time, I mean, he got an A in creative writing from Miss Eavesbridge once! (quarantine fic)

The days have been long for the both of them, and it’s not like he was snooping, really, he wasn’t. He was bored.

Ever since the lockdown had started in New York, Kurt felt like he was going to go mad. His apartment with Blaine was only small (despite their success and newfound fame, prices to live in the city were still ridiculously high) and there was only so much they could do in such a tiny space. After multiple different jigsaw puzzles and games of monopoly and other miscellaneous things that didn’t involve sitting around and scrolling through Instagram, he was starting to go a little bit crazy.

It was also hard for them - they were different types of people; Kurt was an extrovert… and well, Blaine… not so much. For Blaine, it was much easier; he would happily sit around at home all day keeping himself busy doing nothing much at all.

But Kurt, he thrived on socialisation, on meeting new people, new faces and interesting personalities. He was growing tired. So he wasn’t surprised when he found himself searching through the shelves and bits of storage in their tiny home, not really knowing what he was looking for.

He found lots of old things knocking around in their draws - a photo album of their first year together as a couple, and smiled as he looked through the miscellaneous memories that had been captured and saved, something to hold onto for all their lives. The receipt from their one of their many dates, a recipe book Kurt had given to Blaine one year for his birthday in their old loft in Bushwick, and Kurt was a little offended to find it hidden away in a random draw next to their bed, but then he decided to search some more.

He wasn’t sure why he hadn’t seen it before, but it was a beautiful thing, a notebook with a leather covering and writing on the front, stuck on with different clippings of letters from headlines of newspapers, and Kurt laughed to himself as it reminded him of The Burn Book from Mean Girls. A guilty pleasure of his, if he was being honest.

However, this expression changed as he opened the notebook. He saw on the very first page, ‘property of Blaine Devon Anderson’ scribbled messily onto the parchment. Around it was lots of different doodles and hearts and other little drawings that made Kurt smile. Then he turned the page, realising what he was actually looking at.

15th March 2011

Dear Diary,

Kurt’s eyes widened as he recognised the date. That date was special to them. He recognised it, even more so, when he read the words ‘I kissed Kurt today!’ in big, capital letters, confirming why it was so special to them. That was when he burst out laughing, deciding to read on. Half of him felt bad for reading through his husband’s diary from nine years ago, but dammit - they were husbands! It was healthy to have some secrets in a relationship, he thought. Reading again, a big smile lit up his face.

I don’t think I’ve ever been happier than I am right now. I’ve been so oblivious all this time, and only now I’ve realised how much I appreciate him. I can’t believe that this might turn into a real thing soon! And hopefully, his feelings are the same. I mean, they would be, wouldn’t they? He did kiss me back. Twice. Anyway, I think I love him. He’s beautiful, and his eyes are so blue…

Kurt was aware that his face was probably lit up like a Christmas tree, but he didn’t care. His now-husband had written about him in his diary on the day of their first kiss. He was allowed to be happy.

“Kurt?”

It was only then that Kurt closed the notebook abruptly, jumping up from where he was sat on the floor against the bed, dumping it on the floor and turning to face Blaine, who had now walked into the room.

“What are you doing?”

Oh god. Kurt looked suspicious. He was fully aware of that. He was trying to wipe his sweaty palms on his trousers (even if they weren’t allowed outside, didn’t mean his fashion game was going to falter) and his eyebrows were raised up far too high as he tried to keep a sense of nonchalance about his aura but failing.

“Nothing, sweetheart.” He smiled. The tension in the room was suffocating. He shouldn’t have been nervous, really, he shouldn’t have, but Blaine was standing there looking very worried and curious and Kurt wasn’t ready for whatever would happen next.

Blaine frowned, moving closer to Kurt.

“You’re acting weird. What’s going—”

He paused as he realised the notebook on the floor. He looked at it, sitting there, then back at his husband, whose eyes were now comically wide, and they stared at each other incredulously.

“Kurt, I swear to fucking god—”

Kurt broke the tension by letting out a giggle, deciding teasing was the best way to go about this situation. He bent down and picked up the notebook from the floor, and continued to read the page he’d been reading, but out loud to Blaine this time.

“So, my soft but scratchy lips tasted exquisite… the sweet flavour of starburst fruit gums but also the sour undertones of orange juice, along with the sweet promise of love?” He burst out laughing. Blaine scrambled towards him, trying to snatch his old diary out of Kurt’s hands.

“Kurt! Give that back!”

“Why… are you talking… about our first kiss… like it’s a fucking Michelin star meal?” Kurt marvelled, between fits of laughter. Blaine was trying to grab the notebook but Kurt made sure to keep a hand on his chest, preventing him from stealing it back.

“Kurt… please! I was excited!” Blaine shouted, exasperated.

That only made Kurt laugh harder, running away from Blaine who was now getting closer to stealing the diary back, so he jumped up on the bed.

“No! I have a right!” He screamed, jumping down from the bed and now running around the apartment, trying to find another excruciatingly cringe-worthy piece of writing to read out to his very embarrassed husband.

“When we pulled back, I stared into his piercing blue orbs… what the fuck are orbs?” He joked, collapsing onto their couch, reading some more, “and I was so dazed, the only thing going on in my mind was Kurt, Kurt, Kurt, then he said, in the softest, most beguiling voice—” he broke off his reading again, trying to understand Blaine’s writing, “sorry… Blaine? Why are you using such descriptive words? This sounds like a fucking fanfiction!” He laughed, then continuing, “he said we should practice,” he raised his eyebrows as he noticed Blaine was watching him at the end of the couch with an exaggerated pout on his face.

You’re so mean,” Blaine whined, he fucking whined, and that was when Kurt started to feel bad.

“Honey, I’m sorry,” He apologized, “but you’ve gotta admit, it is pretty funny.”

“You’re making fun of my sixteen-year-old self’s writing skills,” Blaine said, the pout on his face still prominent, “Miss Eavesbridge gave me an A for creative writing in English at Dalton once!” He said, referencing their Eleventh Grade English teacher.

“Oh, sweetie, I’m sorry for making fun of your creative writing skills,” Kurt laughed, affectionately, pulling Blaine onto the couch from where he was sitting, untangling his folded arms. “Although I don’t think this would be creative writing since it actually happened.” He cross-examined, stroking his hands through his husband’s hair. He was so grateful that Blaine had loosened up on the gel now, moving away from the brick-like hair he had five years ago. He loved stroking Blaine’s hair.

Blaine groaned in annoyance at Kurt’s display of his pedantic trait but obviously appreciated the attention, nestling his head into Kurt’s neck, wrapping his arms around his husband.

“You’ve embarrassed me.”

“That’s what marriage is for!”

"Rude.”

“You’re cute.”

Blaine looked up at Kurt then, lifting his torso so he was fully on top of his husband, holding himself up by his hands. “I can’t believe you found my old diary. Although I am sorry that I described our first kiss like a Michelin star meal. It’s just— it was special, you know? And I wanted to remember every bit of it.”

Kurt’s face was glowing. He was so in love with Blaine, every day his love grew stronger. As he looked into his hazel (Kurt laughed to himself as he thought of the word orbs) eyes, he wondered how he had become so lucky.

“It was special. Do you want to recreate it?” He replied.

Blaine hummed appreciatively, “mmm. Sounds like a good idea,” and leaned in for a kiss. They stayed like that for a while, breathing each other in, Kurt’s hand cupping Blaine’s cheek, eyes closed.

When they broke apart, they stared at each other for a while, when Kurt mumbled, obviously quite dazed, “Any sour undertones of orange there?”

Blaine groaned, dropping his head back down onto Kurt’s shoulder, “That honestly sounds so fucking disgusting. I can’t believe I ever wrote that.”

“Well, actually, you said you wanted to remember every moment of our first kiss, but you actually got a bit of it wrong in your writing.” Kurt acknowledged, picking up Blaine’s old diary again, “you see, here you wrote that I said we should practice, but I actually remember quite clearly that you said that.”

Blaine frowned at this, grabbing the diary out of Kurt’s hands, reading out loud where he had written that.

“he said, in the softest, most beguiling voice, we should practice. Huh. I did get that wrong. Guess my mind was so dazed all I could think about was Kurt, Kurt, Kurt.” Blaine said, quoting his diary entry.

Kurt burst out laughing at that, wrapping his arms around Blaine’s neck, pulling him in for a short kiss once again. “You’re such a dork.”

“But you love me anyway.” Blaine smiled.

“Of course I do. And I know you love me too.” Kurt replied, pressing their lips together again. He loved his beautiful, ‘I-got-an-A-in-creative-writing’, beguiling husband. And he wasn’t going to see the end of this story in a very, very long time.

AO3 link

#klaine #klaine fanfic #klaine fanfiction #quarantined!Klaine #married!Klaine #theyaskedmeto #one-shot #complete #Rated G #Less than 5K #submission

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artnerd1123 · 4 years

Text

A Familiar World

Coffee ——————————————

Following the move in, things are still a little tense in the apartment. So Aiden decides to try and get on Journal’s good side. What better way to do so than with coffee?

The masterpost for AFW can be found here. The chapter post for AFW can be found here.

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At long last, it’s another chapter!!! I’m following the dialogue bits in “warming up,” and this was inspired by the second and third sets there. Gotta get these roomies on track to friendship. I got this finished in 2 days, but it’s been in existence for awhile, so! I’m glad to finally get it out here lskdjfs. Hope y’all enjoy!

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Coffee. Black as pitch, with just a touch of creamer. Not the expensive stuff, mind you. Just what one can get from a certain widely known coffee farm. Rindbell, if a familiar remembered right. And the creamer comes from the same place. Make sure it’s warm and well mixed. Keep it ready for breakfast, noon, and night. Anytime is a good time for this coffee. It’s a comfort, an energy source, and a favorite all wrapped into one. Easy to tell, as it’s what’s filled a skittish sorcerer’s cup for a few weeks now. Enough was gone that he was running dangerously low. The gentle scrape of fingers on the bottom of a can had greeted the apartment consistently for a couple days. And the sorcerer? Well, he wasn’t saying anything. His name might’ve been Journal, but he wasn’t about to be an open book. And he’d already established how he didn’t want his roommate worrying about him at all. “I’m headed to do some apartment shopping,” Aiden had said, a few days earlier. Journal had barely spared him a glance. It was one of the few times Aiden caught the sorcerer out of his room. He’d been making coffee, of course. The questor himself hadn’t touched the coffee maker thus far. It was one of the agreements they’d silently come to. Journal had the coffee machine. Aiden didn’t use it. That was how things were. So far. … And Journal didn’t seem to have picked up Aiden’s hint. He decided to be a little more direct. “... Do you... want anything? While I’m out?” Aiden ventured. Journal had fixed him with a withering look. “I don’t need you buying anything for me,” he replied tersely. Aiden quirked a brow, holding up his hands. “Alright. That’s fine. Just… figured I’d ask.” “... Whatever.” And so he hadn’t gotten anything. But now, with Journal’s stash coming to an end, the situation had changed. The sorcerer was twitchy and out even less. Cleary, he was trying to save what he had left. He didn’t want to ask for more, either. But he needed it. Aiden wasn’t about to let Journal go without it. He didn’t need to know his roommate well to see how big of a deal the drink was. And maybe. Just maybe. He could finally get on his good side.

Aiden was up early. He usually was, but it was especially important today. He had errands to run, and his roommate wasn’t one who liked to sleep in. Pulling his cloak around his shoulders, he cast a look around the living room. It was barely deserving of its name. The curtains were drawn, barely letting the sun’s first rays inside. The bookshelf was half full. All the novels that remained were shelved neatly. A news scroll was the only thing on the coffee table. One of the armchairs remained utterly untouched. If he hadn’t been sitting on the couch reading last night, he would’ve sworn the place was still waiting for its tenants. It was… discouraging. But he wasn’t going to give up. Not yet, anyways. “You ready to go, Roo?” the questor called quietly. There was an answering meow from the hall. The indigo cat familiar came into sight a moment later. Rubbing at his eyes, Roo yawned loudly. His patched cloak hung loosely around his neck, and his tail dragged against the ground. It was leaving a little paint trail as he made his way to his originator’s side. He sort of just… stood there. Blinking sleepily. “... mnnh… yeah,” Roo mumbled. “... les… lesgo…” Aiden chuckled softly. The familiar was always droopy in the mornings. “C’mere, roodle doodle,” he said gently, taking his paw. “We won’t be out long.” “Wha’eveh yeh say, dad…” Aiden let Roo out first before locking the door behind them. He had no doubt that his roommate would be fine if he didn’t, but the younger sorcerer preferred a locked door. Hopefully that would change sometime. I’d love having visitors over someday. For now, though, they were off to the store. Down the steps and out the front doors they went. Roo woke up more once they were outside. His tail twitched anxiously, and his ears pressed back against his head. He was walking as close to Aiden as he could manage. Aiden gave him a few reassuring pats. The kitty’s nerves were nothing new. The area was still unfamiliar, after all. “Not far to the store,” he hummed. “And we’re only picking up a few things.” “... ‘s theah gonna b-be… um… a l-lotta people…?” Roo whispered, eyes flicking from place to place. “Probably not. We’re up early enough to miss most people, but late enough for stores to be open,” Aiden explained. “... mnn… okay…” Roo took a couple shaky breaths. The tension slowly eased from his shoulders. “... okay. W-we got this.” “That’s the spirit bud…”

Shopping indeed went quickly. It took a little to find Journal’s preferred coffee, but Roo’s excellent memory had come in handy. Nothing like a detail oriented familiar to remember exactly what labels look like. Aiden also snagged a couple other things while they were out. Biscuits, for roo, and some veggies, for dinner that night. But that was neither here nor there. The purchase that mattered was the coffee. And what mattered now was getting home on time…

The originator and familiar found themselves on their doorstep once again. Aiden fumbled around in his belt pack for the key, grumbling under his breath. He still wasn’t used to keeping track of such things. At least he could manage holding a grocery bag and biscuit box in one arm. “Did yeh drop it?” Roo asked, brows furrowed as he shifted a bag of coffee and carrots in his arms. “I-I don’ see it on the floor out heah…” “No no, I’m sure I have it,” Aiden sighed, checking his cloak pocket. “I distinctly remember putting it away. What a time to remember my organization skills are lacking- ah!” His fingers closed around the small bit of metal, drawing it out. He gave Roo a wink as he stuck it in the lock. “Good thing my memory’s not as cluttered as everything else, eh?” The comment drew a giggle from the paint cat. Aiden nudged open the door, and Roo went scampering inside. Though Aiden held his breath going in, a relieved sigh was the only thing that came out. He could hear some noise from down the hall, but that was alright. The living room was empty, as was the kitchen, from what he could see. Aside from Roo and himself, that is. Good. They’d made it in time. “Take the coffee to the kitchen, bud,” he called softly, throwing his cloak onto the rack. “Already on it!” Roo chirped. He quickly skittered into the kitchen, his originator right behind him. Aiden busied himself putting away the other groceries as Roo climbed cabinets for the coffee container. He made sure to keep an eye on the kitty, though. All he had to do was dump the bag into the tin. But still. Roo was small. And the cabinets were high up. Plenty of opportunity for things to fall on him- or the kitty himself to fall. The sound of coffee beans gently clinking against metal rang out soon enough. From Roo’s little “mrrp!” it was louder than he’d expected. And… did it mask the noises in the hall? Or had they stopped? Aiden snuck a glance out the kitchen doorway as the beans’ clinking slowed to a stop. For a moment- just a moment- he thought he saw someone looking out from the hall. But his glance was over in an instant, and he’d nearly dropped a bag of celery. The questor sighed to himself as he got it set back in the cold cabinet. Hopefully what he saw meant their roommate would join them for breakfast. Turning back to the kitchen, he saw Roo half hanging out of another cabinet. The sight made him snort. Whatever he was digging for, he had several boxes on the verge of tipping onto the floor. He crossed the room quickly. “What’re you up to over there, bud?” Aiden chuckled, lifting him out. “I’m gettin breakfast!” Roo mewed indignantly. He crossed his arms, pouting as he hung in Aiden’s grasp. “I’m gonna have some’a the marshmella cereal!” “You sure you need sugar first thing in the morning?” Aiden asked, one brow raised. “Oh, c’mon! It’s not like I’m askin fer catnip!” Roo huffed. “Mmh… Fair enough,” Aiden nodded. He set him down gently, chuckling as Roo beamed. “Go have a seat. I’ll get it. You nearly knocked everything out of here just trying to get the box.” “Yeah, well, there’s no stools on the counter.” “Also fair.” Aiden shook out some cereal and marshmallows into one bowl for roo, and some cornflakes into another for himself. A snap or two left a milk bottle in his hand, and he poured some milk into the two bowls. He stuck a spoon in each before turning around again. It was when he carried them to the table, though, that he noticed someone standing in the kitchen doorway. Journal. He didn’t look any different than usual. Dark clothes, bright leggings, carefully smoothed and dutifully styled hair, pulled back in a ponytail. Though he still managed to look somewhat disheveled. It was probably the raccoon’s mask of sleeplessness on his face. The sorcerer seemed to hover where he was, uncertain about coming in. With the way his eyes flicked from the originator and familiar to the rest of the room, Aiden could tell he was still nervous. That was fine. He just gave him a gentle, warm smile, as he always did. “Good morning Journal,” he hummed, setting the bowls on the table. Roo gave a quiet thank you before waving at Journal. “N-nice to see yeh again...” Roo said softly. “... yeah. ‘Morning...” Journal mumbled. “... you too…” There was a beat of silence as they all looked at each other. Then the two turned to their cereal as their nervous roommate crossed the room. They’d give him his space. And if he didn’t feel like talking more, that was ok. Didn’t make the silence any less awkward, but still. Aiden couldn’t help but sneak a glance or two at Journal as he reached for his coffee container. Taking it down, the younger sorcerer fumbled with it. A look of surprise flitted across his face. Seems he hadn’t been expecting the weight. He set it down carefully, his surprise turning to bafflement once he took the lid off. It was filled to the top with coffee beans. Across the table, Roo was hiding a smile. Aiden hid one of his own. He’d wait for Journal to say something, though. Sure enough, he spoke up. “... did… did you… get me more coffee?” Journal asked hesitantly. “Hm? Oh, yes.” Aiden looked up before nodding. “I grabbed some while Roo and I were out this morning.” “... huh…” Journal eyed the coffee beans for a moment. Reaching in, he pulled out the freshly emptied bag. It brought a whole new layer of delighted confusion to his gaze. “Wh- how- how’d you know what brand of coffee I like???” “You drink enough that I figured you’d like black,” Aiden shrugged. “... that, and Roo saw the label. He helped me pick the right brand.” Roo chuckled timidly when Journal looked at him. Journal blinked, silent for a moment. “... oh. Well. Uh. Thanks,” he said haltingly. “No problem,” Aiden smiled. Journal gave him a small smile in return as he went back to his coffee making. The silence that followed was different than earlier. This was less tense. More… companionable. Just the quiet sounds of morning breakfast time with three roommates. It was… nice. For the first time, all three of them could admit to that.

When Journal finally had his coffee in a mug, Aiden and Roo were finishing up their cereal. “Good coffee?” Aiden inquired. Journal gave a small nod. “Good,” Aiden smiled. “I’m glad to hear it.” “W… will we see yeh again today…?” Roo piped up. He fidgeted with his paws, looking shyly hopeful. “Besides when you come for more coffee, that is,” Aiden joked gently. Journal was silent for a bit. Considering. He swirled his drink as he looked between the two. Eventually he shrugged, taking another sip of his coffee. “Maybe,” he said. “Maybe.” Heaving a sigh, he started off towards the hall. “Depends how much work I get done today.” “F-faieh enough,” Roo sighed. “I-I hope that goes well…” “I’ll second that,” Aiden nodded. “Again, it was nice to see you, Journal.” Journal looked over his shoulder one last time as he stood before the hallway. “... yeah. You… you too,” he replied. “... thanks again.” “Not a problem, Journal.”

As Journal headed down the hall, Aiden and roo were still smiling. They’d done good this time. And, with some luck, AIden thought, I’ll get Journal out and about yet. For now… they had coffee. That was as good a start as any.

#afw chapter #my story #afw #a familiar world #aiden pingere #roo pingere #journal sherman drapht #arty writes #ayyy ya girl's finished another chapter!!!#after 60 years sldkjfsklf #i'm excited to start on these guys being friends--#i'll have some nettles letters to accompany this latest update sometime soonish #but! there's this for now #lskdjfs i hope y'all like--#*softly* and if u enjoy; rbs of my writing r appreciated...

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warmau · 5 years

Text

Prince!AU Jeno

requested by my giveaway winner! + find all other aus here

the most charitable prince the nation has ever seen

literally lives for helping others

does charity work whenever he can and refuses invites to fancy balls or galas

opting instead to get down in the dirt and plant new vegetables in the local gardens

or volunteering to help teach kids after school

even though he’s a shining star when it comes to community service and giving back

and the public adores him to pieces

he really,,,,,,,,,doesn’t act like a prince at all

not to say that he isn’t mannerly or that he doesn’t know the his country’s own values and laws

it’s just he’s a hyper young boy who thinks skateboarding through the palace halls is fun

doing kick flips over expensive pieces of art and scaring butler renjun half to death

he’ll be caught red handed stealing sweets from the pantry - mouth full of chocolate covered strawberries

and of course the hoarding,,,,,,,,and by hoarding i mean the hoarding of stray cats he keeps trying to hide in his room

but renjun is staring at the various bite marks and scratches on jeno and he’s like

“oh - how’d you get those?”

“uhhhhhh chenle bit me.”

“that’s almost believable, but hand over the kittens”

would live in the animal shelter if he could

just getting his gucci suit covered in cat fur

grinning from ear to ear as all the animals flock to him

and the shelter works swoon at the sight of his eye smile

but yeah, he has no sense of royal boundaries - or that he’s above anyone else simply because he’s a prince

like he’ll hop out of the carriage during parades - the queen nudging for knight jaemin to follow him

before jeno gets himself lost in the crowds

greeting shop keepers with deep bows and letting young kids cling onto him and offer him flowers and candy

there was once a newspaper headline about how a thief had managed to slip one of jeno’s rings off his fingers

when jeno had walked through the streets without his knight

but then the thief felt so bad that he approached the prince a couple of minutes later and offered it back

someone asked him later

“why did you give the ring back?”

“i didn’t want prince lee to be sad, he’s too handsome to be sad.”

renjun keeps stocking prince jeno’s closet with “princely” attire - in navys, greys, and blacks

because those colors make him look like he’s being serious

but jeno just shows up in all pink like

“i heard we’re going to be doing negotiations with prince haechan today - he likes pink, right?”

you’re actually kind of a rowdy kid yourself - ever since you were young you liked causing trouble and pulling pranks

always running around with scraps on your knuckles and bruises on your knees

you never cared about politics or the royal family,,,,,,,,,,,,or school,,,,,,,,,,,,or anything really

you just liked doing things for a rush

living on the edge and sometimes getting scolded for it by your (in your opinion) overtly tight and proper roommate doyoung

who treated you like his noisy, rough around the edges child

that always paid the share of the rent late

but somehow,,,,,,,,you’d managed to survive

doing small jobs here and there - mostly art focused as that was where your talents lay

you used to do a lot of graffiti - but on several occasions you’d been caught

and you were kind of wary that the next time the local authorities got their hands on you, you wouldn’t get away with just a slap on the wrist

so you strayed away, instead you did paid mural work and designs

it was pennies really, but it was much better than slaving away in an office

well,,,,,,,in your eyes at least,,,,,,,,

but when the royal family unveils a new painting in the town square

you can’t help but feel your palms itch at the though of spray painting a giant mustache on the prince’s face

a part of you argues that you don’t need to do this - really, this is childish and you’ll get caught and regret it

but the other part of, the one that always wins, goes absolutely bonkers

so you end up on sneaking down the fire escape, bag pack stuffed to the brim with cans in all colors

you pull up your hoodie and make the short, zig zagging walk through back alleys to the square

it’s dead quiet. not even stray cats are out at this time

and you excitedly rub your hands together as you stand in front of the large painted faces of your country’s royals

now you really don’t mean it as anything but a harmless joke

you’re not making a political statement by drawing stars on the queens white blouse or giving the king goody glasses

you just want to cause a stir - you just want to do it because you can

and as you lean up to run a red line on the side of the princes’ handsome jawline

you hear a voice

“ah. if it isn’t you again”

for a moment your body goes cold - seriously, only fifteen minutes in and the cops are here?!?!?!

you expect they’ll haul you down to the station, be given a long and boring speech about respecting property, and then let out by the time the sun rises

but that doesn’t happen

instead you find yourself spending the night in the station, no one tells you what’s happening, until finally you hear a rustle going on in the hall

and the door to the room you’re being held in opens

a knight walks in, you can tell by his uniform and the crest of the lee kingdom he wears on his chest

he gives you a once over and shakes his head

“jaemin, what’s going to happen to them?”

an officer questions and you sit up a little straighter

“that’ll be up to the royal family to decide”

you can’t believe it - actually you’re pretty sure you must be fever dreaming when you find yourself in the main ballroom of the palace

a place you’ve only seen in photos and on tv

“i- im here all over a harmless prank ?!?!?!”

the knight, named jaemin as you learned, gives you a sympathetic shrug

“it’s not harmless to deface the people who run this country.”

“deface then? all i did was doodle-“

he shushes you and stands at attention as the doors open with a loud and heavy sound

in front of your wide eyes step the queen and the prince, both dressed in golds and jewels

you're so frozen that jaemin has to cough thrice until you realize you have to bow in greeting

as you hang your head low, the queen gives an annoyed tsk

prince jeno on the other hand observes you curiously

his hands clasped behind his back as he looks at your black hoodie and jaemin drops the bag full of your supplies on the spot in front of you

“child, you really shouldn’t have drawn such crude things on a public mural.”

the queen begins and you swallow

her tone doesn’t sound all that sweet like when she’s giving speeches over the radio ,,,, i might have really messed up this time!

she continues to talk, pointing out that the mural took weeks to perfect. that the townspeople are just as disappointed as the family and authorities are. at some point there’s a comment about how you were probably just raised poorly

all of it kind of drowns in your head as you panic about your fate

“as for punishment-“

you stiffen and you think you even hear knight jaemin tense up at your side

“wait, mother may i?”

the prince speaks for the first time and your gaze shoots over to him instantly

he’s wearing his blonde hair back with golden pins, a loose fitting blouse tucked into riding jeans with a belt that looks like it’s been encrusted with rubies

“i think i have a good idea, it’ll help them both reflect on their crime against the town-“

crime? it was some harmless drawing!

“and help restore the mural.”

“oh?”

the prince smiles, but you’re hesitant - gripping the sleeves of your hoodie as he gives a slow nod

“let’s just make them re-paint it!”

you let your jaw drop, but no noises come out of your mouth

he wants me to re-paint that giant thing all by myself? it’ll take weeks - i won’t be able to do anything else - i would rather -

“it sounds better than being banished, right?”

you can’t really formulate a sentence, so knight jaemin answers for you

“that’s a splendid idea prince lee! im sure the culprit is grateful!”

you feel a sharp elbow in your side and you kind of sputter to life

give a groggy

“thank you so much my prince”

as jeno brings his hands up in a clap and his mother, seemingly bored already with you, gives her agreement

just like this whole situation - you think you have to be in a bad dream as you stand in front of the mural in broad daylight

a tiny circle of whispering locals around you

as jaemin sets up a ladder and hands you a large, clean brush

“this is going to take forever.”

“maybe you shouldn’t have messed it up in the first place.”

he grins when you give him a sideways glare

but make your way up the ladder, you come face to face with the splotches of red paint from your prank and with a frustrated sigh you begin to paint over them

after a while, people become uninterested and disperse

jaemin is supposed to be guarding you, but he disappears somewhere

saying that it’ll be obvious if you slack off - someones got to get those goofy glasses off of the kings face

so you end up tired, alone, and grumbling about how this punishment might just be worse than banishment

“what is prince lee’s problem anyway? butting his head into the conversation -”

“oh, i think you missed a spot on my face.”

you almost drop the paint can in your hand with surprise

when you hear a familiar voice from down beside the ladder

you turn, carefully and see the prince himself

jaemin is beside him, pretending as if he’s been doing his job all day as jeno takes a look at your progress so far

“hmmm looks like this project might take a while,,,,,”

he muses and you have the sudden urge to turn the bucket of paint upside down and watch it dump over onto his blonde head

but you restrain yourself at the last minute

“but still. i trust you’ll get it done nicely?”

you can’t tell if he’s being annoying on purpose, mocking you and teasing

or if he really means it

“well then, carry on. you can leave when it’s dark and return in the morning. jaemin, you’ll be here - yes?”

jaemin salutes and you roll your eyes as you turn back to your work

you don’t notice how the prince’s stare lingers a bit before he turns on his heel and is off

the next couple of days is grueling, you wake up early - get told off by doyoung for getting yourself into the mess - trudge up to the town sqaure and clamber up the ladder with your paints

you hate it at first, but after a while you kind of come to terms with it

whistling tunes to distract yourself and even sometimes holding conversations with knight jaemin

you don’t expect the prince, or anyone from the royal family to come and check on you

but by the end of the first week - you’re surprised to see jeno at the mural and without jaemin

“my prince?”

you approach with caution and he gives you a smile in response

he’s dressed more casually then you’ve ever seen before, dark jeans and leather suspenders over a button up shirt

but then you see the golden necklace and wrist watch

once a prince, always a prince

he motioned to the mural with his head and goes

“it’s coming along well, i knew your talent would show.”

“my talent?”

“do you think i don’t know about your other work?”

for a moment,,,,,,,you look at him confused

“a-are you -”

“the graffiti and the paid work you’ve done around the town. i did my research.”

again, you aren’t sure if he’s bringing it up as a compliment or not - so you just shrug in response

“well, im happy your highness is pleased so far.”

he puts a hand under his chin and steps back

“although i see you haven’t gotten to my face yet?”

you huff - ready to go on a tangent about how the king and queen need to be fixed first

when jeno bursts into laughter at the sight of your furrowed expression

“im teasing, take all the time you need.”

you step back with him - thinking nothing of it when you motion to his portrait on the wall

“the original artist didn’t do that good of a job - do you see the shade on your neck, it’s not from the right angle. and they weren’t able to capture your eyes well either.”

jeno looks impressed at your comments, but you aren’t even doing it for that

you just have been thinking about it since you started your “punishment”

“when light hits brown eyes like yours, the color becomes almost translucently brown and they made it muddy-”

“why, maybe you should become a full time artist instead of running around getting in trouble?”

you scrunch up your nose

“no, traditional art is fine and all that. but my kind of style isn’t really appreciated. im lucky enough to find small work.”

you pick up a paint can of green, making your way up the ladder - jeno comes to the side and holds it steady as you reach the top

why is he even here in the first place? don’t prince’s have better things to do?

you wonder to yourself as you pluck a brush from the front pocket of your jeans - leaning back to make sure you’re in a good spot to reach the lapel of the king’s uniform

“have you always been an artist?”

the prince’s voice wafts up to you ears and you shake your head

“no, i didn’t start until i was older.”

“what a shame, you clearly have talent.”

you push back the warm feeling that crawls up onto your cheeks

and you assume that at some point he’s going to have to leave,,,he cant stay here and chat with you forever

and he does

but then

he keeps coming back

bright and early, every morning - the prince is waiting for you beside the mural

he can never stay past an hour or so, and it really confuses you as to what he gains out of watching you paint and asking you questions about yourself, but it is something to distract you

as the work on the mural trudges on slowly

after a couple of weeks - you finish the king and queen and get started on the prince

for some reason, you approach fixing his portrait with more care

you spend a lot of time looking at it from affair, even sketching it out on scraps of paper before you bring a paintbrush up to it

one day as you’re getting ready to re-paint jeno, you notice a small cat is making rounds around your paint cans

you watch it with a tiny giggle, before you see the prince - scurrying after it like a entertained large child

the kitten hops through some nearby bushes and jeno squats down to see where it’s gone when he sees a pile of abandoned papers beside them

you’d forgotten where you’d put the sketches you did of him from some time ago

but when the prince unfolds the papers he finds them, looking over the fine pencil work and the familiar features that make up his handsome face

he lifts his hand up - waving them to get your attention

“did you draw me?”

you feel your throat go dry a bit and you shake your head

“n-no, i mean i did but for the painting reference.”

even from up on the ladder you can see stars in jeno’s eyes as he looks at the drawings

“can i keep them?”

it’s an unexpected question, so you don’t really know how to answer - it catches you off guard

so you turn your body a bit too fast

and before you can stop, gravity takes its course and your balance is thrown off

the green paint in your hand goes flying, a pretty arch splattering down over the mural and the ground below as you feel yourself falling backwards

the impact scares you - so you shut your eyes tightly and don’t hear jeno’s voice call out your name

you wait and wait to hit the ground

but instead you tumble straight into a pair of arms, your weight momentarily causing jeno to teeter backwards, but he manages to steady his grip

“are you alright?”

he asks, breathless and you refuse to open your eyes

“did i die?”

“yes.”

your eyes shoot open and jeno laughs at your panicked “what?!?!?”

“no, you didn’t die. you’re ok.”

you look at him - before reaching out and touching his face to confirm

forgetting that one of your country’s laws is that you’re not even allowed to touch royals

but you don’t care

his skin is smooth and warm to the touch and you let out a sigh of relief

“oh -ok.”

but jeno nearly drops you at the sudden contact, shaking his head to fight the oncoming blush

he sets you down and you turn to see the damage

a giant splatter of green right on the center of the queen’s face

“oh no - now i have to redo it again”

you groan and jeno just blinks before regaining his own composure

“i’ll help you.”

you step back and shake your head

“no way! you’re the prince, if people see you helping me - they’ll think -”

“i don’t care.”

jeno picks up a spare paintbrush and smiles, the pretty brown eyes turning into crescent moons as he does

“this time it wasn’t your fault, it was mine for startling you. it’s only right that i get the same punishment you did.”

you’re skeptical - and a little embarrassed

but jeno climbs up the stairs and turns to point

“im not good at painting though, so i will need your help.”

after news spreads that the prince has joined in on helping re-paint the mural

the circle around you two grows bigger and bigger each day

jaemin is called in, and even renjun at some point

which you find a little odd because at the end of the day renjun is berating you with questions about what kind of style of clothing you like - if you think the prince is handsome blonde - and other questions that you feel you really don’t need to be answering

but jeno never goes back on his word

he shows up everyday until the mural is fully fixed

the last day, as you’re working on small details - and the crowd is bustling around you as jeno mixes paints at the bottom of the ladder

you hear an uproar of cheers and see from the corner of your eye that everyone is bowing low

“mother!”

jeno calls out and you quickly make your way down - ready to greet the queen as she ignores you and takes in your work so far

“jeno, you really must stop wasting your time here. you’re a prince not a painter, come now - let’s go back to the palace.”

she says - voice prim and proper

golden crown shining against the early morning light

you don’t say anything, but you feel jeno look back at you

“the mural is almost done, when it is. ill come back.”

his mother’s lips form a straight line and she shakes her head

“it’s their punishment, no prince would ever help-”

“but i also messed up mother, i caused an accident and now i have to do my diligence too.”

renjun, whose beside the queen is shaking his head frantically - trying to tell jeno to just stop and come along

jaemin is silent on the otherside

and then you finally find your voice

“prince lee, you’ve helped me so much, but the queen is right.”

you begin and jeno straightens up his back

“no. she isn’t. i messed up all your work, im going to stay and help you fix this. then ill go back to the palace.”

you swear you see renjun plant his palm against his face

but the queen doesn’t say anything

not until jeno perks up and adds

“you’re welcome to come back with me too.”

“what?”

you blurt out and the queen gives out an even harsher “what?”

renjun nearly falls over and jaemin looks amused as jeno walks over to you, hand swung around your shoulder

the common folk watching the scene all gasp and you feel your face turn red hot

“come back to the palace with me!”

“je- prince what are you -”

jeno grins

“i’d like them to work as the official artist for the royal family, and -”

he leans in a little, tilting his head and whispering the next part into your ear

“and maybe something more than just a friend to me?”

from your expression everyone knows what he said

the queen is ready to deny the request, but she’s struck speechless

and you kind of just

“i - uh -”

everything is paused and then you hear the shout of your name

through the crowd comes your roommate doyoung, seemingly unaware of the queen or the princes presence

as he stomps up to you

“we need to discuss rent!”

he exclaims, taking your hand and hauling you out down the street

am i dreaming?

you ask as you feel yourself tugged away from the crowd

and you come to terms with the fact that this has to be some crazy dream you’re about to wake up from

but only an hour after being lectured about paying your due

the doorbell rings and you open it to see the prince there

“my dad said you can come work as the artist for the palace, he convinced my mom too. but about the other thing i asked?”

“um -”

you start and doyoung’s voice rings from the kitchen

“prince or not, you’re only allowed to go on a date with him after i get your share of the rent!”

you feel like a child just scolded by a parent in front of their crush

but jeno bursts out laughing and you want to tell him to stop

but instead he just shouts back

“i’ll cover their missing rent - but can i take them to dinner then?”

after a moment of silence you hear doyoung again

“deal!”

jeno offers his hand and you take it

dreaming, im definitely dreaming - am i going to wake up? when will i wake up?

but you don’t wake up because it’s not a dream

and you end up having a dinner picnic in front of the finished mural, sharing sandwiches with jeno

the sketches you did still sticking out of his pocket, the sound of knight jaemin (whose supposed to be standing guard over you and the prince) snoozing in the background

#nct dream scenarios #nct dream imagines #nct dream au #jeno scenarios #jeno imagines #jeno au #member: jeno #sfw #prince!au #lee jeno #nct dream

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theyaskedmeto · 4 years

Text

sour undertones - klaine oneshot

read at ao3

words: 1723

AN: this was inspired by a piece of fanart by animateglee, go check it out!

summary: Kurt finds Blaine's diary and is surprised at what he finds there. Blaine thought it was good at the time, I mean, he got an A in creative writing from Miss Eavesbridge once!

The days have been long for the both of them, and it’s not like he was snooping, really, he wasn’t. He was bored.

15th March 2011

Dear Diary,

“Kurt?”

“What are you doing?”

Blaine frowned, moving closer to Kurt.

“You’re acting weird. What’s going—”

He paused as he realised the notebook on the floor. He looked at it, sitting there, then back at his husband, whose eyes were now comically wide, and they stared at each other incredulously.

“Kurt, I swear to fucking god—”

“Kurt! Give that back!”

“Why... are you talking... about our first kiss... like it’s a fucking Michelin star meal?” Kurt marvelled, between fits of laughter. Blaine was trying to grab the notebook but Kurt made sure to keep a hand on his chest, preventing him from stealing it back.

“Kurt… please! I was excited!” Blaine shouted, exasperated.

That only made Kurt laugh harder, running away from Blaine who was now getting closer to stealing the diary back, so he jumped up on the bed.

“You’re so mean,” Blaine whined, he fucking whined, and that was when Kurt started to feel bad.

“Honey, I’m sorry,” He apologized, “but you’ve gotta admit, it is pretty funny.”

Blaine groaned in annoyance at Kurt’s display of his pedantic trait but obviously appreciated the attention, nestling his head into Kurt’s neck, wrapping his arms around his husband.

“You’ve embarrassed me.”

“That’s what marriage is for!”

“Rude.”

“You’re cute.”

“It was special. Do you want to recreate it?” He replied.

When they broke apart, they stared at each other for a while, when Kurt mumbled, obviously quite dazed, “Any sour undertones of orange there?”

Blaine groaned, dropping his head back down onto Kurt’s shoulder, “That honestly sounds so fucking disgusting. I can’t believe I ever wrote that.”

Blaine frowned at this, grabbing the diary out of Kurt’s hands, reading out loud where he had written that.

Kurt burst out laughing at that, wrapping his arms around Blaine’s neck, pulling him in for a short kiss once again. “You’re such a dork.”

“But you love me anyway.” Blaine smiled.

#this was meant to be way shorter but oh look! it grew #quarantined!klaine #glee #klaine fanfic #klaine fic #elsie writes #kurt hummel #klaine #blaine anderson #quarantine fic #klaine oneshot #glee fanfiction #fic: sour undertones

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aestheticsandwriting · 4 years

Text

One-Shot a Day, Day 4: Power Outage. RvB

Day 4: Power Outage. The overnight blizzard has caused a power outage. Thankfully the cabin Tucker, Junior, and Wash are staying in has plenty of firewood and candles, and the three brought plenty of card games and board games to keep them busy.

“Hey, bud, how long have you been up?” Wash jogs down the stairs, spotting Junior sitting on the couch, doodling in a notebook, blanket draped over his hoodie-clad torso, taking note of the early time; about six-thirty.

“Not too long, but I moved down here to sleep about two this morning. My room got too cold.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty chilly in here. Had breakfast yet?” Wash tries to set the coffee pot going, not thinking about the lack of electricity until it won’t start, sighing and walking back over to the couch, glancing down to see Junior’s dragon drawings. “I’m going to put some more wood in the fire, and then get me some cereal or something. We’ll have to move all our cold and frozen stuff outside at some point today since the fridge isn’t running.”

“Nope, not too hungry right now. Papa Wash?”

“Yeah?” He smiles at the new name.

“Can I help you put the wood in the fireplace? Dad’s never let me cause he says it’s too dangerous.”

“Sure, I’ll let you help with a couple of small pieces. Big pieces can be really hard to put in cause they roll sometimes, but we can do a few smaller ones instead of one or two big ones.”

“Yay! Thanks!” Junior throws his notebook and pencil on the coffee table and scrambles to the small wood stock they laid next to the fireplace the previous night. The blond man knees down, showing the boy how to put the wood into the fireplace safely, using the poker to make sure the wood is back far enough before they close the door again, rinsing their hands and deciding to get some cereal for breakfast, taking the milk outside and setting it on the porch to stay cold.

After washing out their bowls and spoons, Junior looks at his dad’s boyfriend. “Papa Wash?”

“What’s up?”

“Will you tell me some stories?”

“What kind of stories do you want to hear?”

“I know you don’t like to talk about some of it, but would you tell me about some of your time as a soldier? I want to know what it’s like to be one.”

“Yeah, I think I can tell you some things. I have some funny stories from basic training.” The two lay down on the couch, Wash throwing his arm over Junior’s torso, wrapping them both up in the blanket. “There was this one time in basic,” a chuckle at the memory, “we had this obstacle course we had to do some days in PT. And one of the sections was kind of like a rope wall thing we had to climb. I was terrible at it. Well, that particular day I got my foot caught in one of the ropes, I just dangled there while everyone else was climbing all around me and I couldn’t get free. I had to re-do the course all by myself in front of everyone after they all finished to make sure I could do it in the right amount of time.”

Forty-five minutes and three stories later Wash pauses, glancing down curiously even though the boy can’t see him. “Why have you become curious about my time as a soldier recently?”

“Oh… well. I just am.”

“Junior… what’s going on? If you’re just curious, that’s fine you can tell me, but is there something else?”

“Well… both you and dad were soldiers, so I thought that you would want me to be one, too.” A pause as the boy fidgets slightly, the older man seeing that he wants to say more, so he stays quiet. “And, I figured I should know as much as possible about what it’s like in the military so that way I don��t disappoint you and dad.”

“Oh, Junior.” Wash squeezes the boy tight against him. “Your dad and I want you to do whatever you want to do. If you truly want to be in the military, you can go into the military and we’ll both be very proud of you. But if you want to go to school and become a scientist or a veterinarian, or a nurse, or doctor, or if you want to go to trade school to become a mechanic, or welder, or carpenter, then that’s fine too! We want you to do something that you can be happy or content with. Trust me, it is not worth it to be doing a job that you hate if you have other options. You’re a smart person, and both your dad and I agree that we think you could do whatever you want if you set your mind to it.”

“Oh… So you don’t expect me to go into the army?” Junior squirms, turning himself in his step-dad’s arms so he can face him, concern bright in his dark eyes.

“Of course not.” Wash drops a kiss to the boy’s forehead. “Like I said, if you’re just curious about my time as a soldier I’m happy to tell you, and if you want to be a soldier, then your dad and I will be proud of your choice, but that’s not our expectation just because we were both soldiers.”

“Oh… Okay! I like that much better. Cause I was thinking I might want to be an artist.”

“And I think you’d be amazing at it.”

“Could you tell me some stories about when you were a kid?”

“Did I ever tell you about my cat, Loki?”

“Nope.”

“Ooooh man. We had him back when I was a kid. Loki was always getting into trouble. One time he got stuck in a tree in our backyard.”

“Oh no!”

“Yeah. My mom’s about to call the fire department when dad stops her. Says he’ll handle it. So he sends her inside and gets out his chainsaw. Dad was never a cat person. So he starts to cut down the tree, but it falls the wrong way. Right into the power lines!”

“What happened to Loki?!”

“Poor cat was electrocuted, falls thirty feet out of the air, lands on his feet, and then walks away like nothing ever happened.”

“Wow!”

“Yeah! Another time, we found him in the dryer once ma had finished a load of laundry. And another time we found him in the engine of dad’s truck. That cat lived to be twenty-five years old.” Wash continues, telling him a few more stories of his childhood, Junior giggling as he obviously embellishes a few of them, and that’s how Tucker finds them close to two hours after Wash had come downstairs.

“Hi, dad!” The boy calls, having stayed in his facing upward position so he could see Wash’s face while he was story-telling, giving him a perfect view of the open landing above.

“Morning, T, nice of you to finally join us.” Wash grins up to where his boyfriend is standing.

“Yeah, I must’ve really needed the sleep. What have you boys been up to?”

“Wash has been telling me about when he was a kid! He had a cat named Loki that could live through anything!”

“Ooooh, that sounds fun. Have you eaten yet?”

“Yeah, we both had cereal. The milk is already outside to stay cold. I didn’t measure, but it looks like the blizzard last night dropped about two and a half feet of snow, but I turned my phone on to check the forecast quick, and it looks like it’s supposed to start warming up enough tomorrow to melt it. But who knows how long the electricity will be out, so we should probably move the rest of the cold stuff our there and surround it with snow.”

“Oooh, I’ll put my snow clothes on and pack the snow around stuff if you and dad bring it out!”

“Sounds like a plan to me. Let’s let your dad eat breakfast first, though, okay?”

“Okay. Oh, dad! Wash taught me how to put small logs in the fire this morning, too!”

“I hope that’s okay with you? I didn’t let him put in anything too big.”

“Yeah, that’s fine. He’s grown a lot since last year, and I trust your judgment.” Tucker finally descends the stairs, dropping a kiss on his son’s forehead and his boyfriend’s lips before walking into the kitchen, grabbing a pop-tart and heading back into the living room, nudging Wash feet. “Move, lemme sit.”

“That’s pleasant.” The blond grins at him as he moves his feet, plopping them back down on Tucker’s lap after he sits.

After Tucker finishes, the three don their winter clothing, Junior bundled heavier than the two adults, still volunteering to stay outside and surround their food items with the snow to keep them cold. They set to work, carrying the food out and insulating it.

After that job is done, Tucker sets to work turning on and heating up the gas stove to heat water, dumping in hot chocolate packets once it’s hot enough and passing mugs to his son and boyfriend, picking up his, and then settling on the couch with them again.

“Dad, Papa Wash?”

“What’s up?”

“Can we play some games? Like Uno, or Clue or something? I’m starting to get bored. Wash and I were gunna play more of the racing game today, but we can’t do that until the power comes back on.”

“Yeah, go pick a game and we’ll play!”

“Yes! Be right back!” Junior hops off the couch, running up the steps to his room where the game bag had been placed, running back down with the whole bag a minute later. “I thought it’d be smarter to just bring the whole bag so I don’t have to go back up when we want to change games.”

The trio spends the afternoon and evening playing various games like Uno, Clue, Sorry, and even a round of The Game of Life before deciding to break for dinner. “Wash, will you go out and grab the stuff out there that we need for the quesadillas? I kept the chicken in here thawing cause those will cook with the gas stove and don’t need the oven since we can’t use it right now.”

“Yeah, sounds good to me.”

Once Tucker has the ingredients, he sets to work, cutting up the chicken, placing it, cheese, sauce, and beans on tortillas, folding them, wrapping them in foil and placing each of them on a stove burner, keeping a careful eye on them to ensure nothing catches fire as they cook.

“Dinner’s ready, guys,” Tucker calls, carefully pulling back the foil from the last of the quesadillas, setting them on plates for each of the others to grab as they come into the kitchen and dining area. “Hey, Junior, are you going to sleep down here tonight or do you want to bunk in mine and Wash’s room if the power still isn’t back on?”

“I’ll just sleep on the couch. It’s pretty comfy, plus I’m getting too big to be sleeping in the same bed as y’all.”

“Okay, just wanted to make sure you were comfortable.”

“Yep! Can we play another game of Clue after dinner?”

“Sure, bud.”

After dinner, Tucker sets about finding the candles he knows the landlord stores for power outages, lighting them and setting them around so they can see, Wash re-stocking the fireplace with more wood, also grabbing more from the covered woodpile on the deck to bring in for the night, taking some up to his and Tucker’s room, rekindling that fire, too.

After a few more hours of games, and Junior nearly falling asleep during the last game, Sorry this time, Tucker tells his son it’s time for bed and that tomorrow they’ll put the tree up and decorate it weather they have electricity for the lights or not since it’ll be only two days until Christmas.

The three trudge up the stairs, Junior to put his pajamas on and brush his teeth, Wash and Tucker retreating to their room for the evening, taking a few candles with them for light, making sure Junior has his battery-powered lantern and that all the candles downstairs had been put out and dosed with a slight bit of water for safety. “Come in and tell us goodnight before you head downstairs, J, but make sure you knock first if the door is closed in case we’re still changing.”

“Okay, dad.” Junior’s voice muffles as Wash closes the bedroom door behind them, him and Tucker changing into their pajamas as well, each man throwing on a pair of sweatpants and an old t-shirt, not needed anything heavier due to the fireplace in their room.

“Goodnight dad, goodnight Papa Wash. I love you both.” Junior walks into the room, his father having opened the door after they finished changing, signaling to the boy he could come in whenever.

“Goodnight, Junior. I love you, too.” The couple says in unison, Wash hugging him and dropping a kiss to his forehead, before the boy’s father moves to do the same.

“If you wake up cold in the middle of the night cause the fire’s dying, come wake one of us, yeah? I trust you, but I still don’t want you putting in new firewood by yourself, especially not in the middle of the night, okay?”

“Okay, dad, I will.”

“Good. I love you.” He drops a second kiss on his son’s head before Junior turns and walks out of the room, the couple hearing his footsteps fade away down the stairs.

“You know, I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of hearing him call me that.” They each step into the bathroom, brushing their teeth and readying for bed in their normal routine for whenever Wash decides to stay at Tucker’s. “So Junior and I had a talk this morning,” Wash’s voice is soft as the couple crawls under the covers, the dark-skinned man tucking himself into the light-skinned man like normal, and Tucker notes the slight caring concern in the voice that he gets when they talk about an important subject.

“Yeah?” Tucker turns his head enough to make eye contact with his boyfriend. “About what?”

“His future job. He was asking me all sorts of questions about what it was like to be a soldier. At first, I just thought, ‘well, okay, he’s a ten-year-old boy that’s interested in this kind of thing.’ But then he kept asking about things, and when I questioned him about it he told me he thought we would want him to become a soldier because we both were, and he wanted to know what to expect that way he could have plenty of time to be prepared and not disappoint either of us.” A sigh from the younger of the two breaks the silence that had been left by Wash finishing his sentence.

“I wonder where he ever got that idea.”

“No idea.”

“What did you tell him?”

“The truth.” Wash pauses for a second, internally marveling at how much Tucker truly does trust him with his child; it’s still so hard to believe sometimes. “That we both want him to do something that he can at least be content with, and hopefully happy doing. And that if he truly wants to become a soldier, we’d be proud, but that doesn’t mean we won’t be proud if he does something different. That was okay, right?”

“Yes, Wash, that was wonderful. You did great. You know Junior really does see you as another father, right? He was ecstatic when I asked him what he thought about you moving in with us.”

“Yeah, I know. I just… Sometimes it doesn’t seem real.”

“I know. Did he say anything about what he might want to do after he found out we don’t expect him to go into the military?”

“He said he might want to be an artist. He’s good at it. I’m sure if he applied that into digital design he could do really well.”

“I bet he could make a killing at that. That or an animator of some kind. But he’s got plenty of time to decide and even change his mind. I can’t believe he’s going to be eleven in a couple months, though.”

“Ugh, stop that, you’re making me feel old.”

“It’s cause you are old.” The younger of the two grins, laughing when Wash playfully slaps him, pretending to be offended.

“Really? Cause I’m pretty sure old guys can’t do this.” The blond slings a leg over Tucker’s waist, straddling the younger man and leaning down to kiss him, grinning when he hears Tucker mumble the word ‘asshole’ against his lips.

“Yeah, but you chose to have me around.”

“True.” As the word leaves Tucker’s mouth the light from their bathroom, which had been on when the power went out the night before, flicks back on, the heating system almost kicking on due to the thermostat being in the cold hallway, not the room filled with the heat from the fireplace.

“I’m going to go lower that temperature so it doesn’t run too much overnight since we have the fires going.”

“Sounds good. I’d like to not wake up in a puddle of sweat.”

“Agreed.” Wash climbs off Tucker, heading into the hallway, and Tucker stands to turn off the bathroom light, getting back into bed when Wash walks back into the room.

“Come ‘ere Mr. not-so-old guy,” Tucker smirks, kissing Wash again as he climbs into bed. “Let’s get some sleep, I have a feeling we’ll be playing in the snow with J tomorrow.”

“Agreed. Goodnight, Tucker, I love you.”

“I love you too, Wash.”

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honeymoonjin · 5 years

Text

the daily grind - jjk oneshot

A/N - 2k word count. No warnings needed.

Jungkook would love to ask out the cute girl that always comes to the coffee shop. If only she would actually look up from her textbooks.

Every uni student and their grandma had done a stint at a coffee shop. Most did it for some work experience and easy cash, ditching the job as soon as they found one where they could spend the shift sitting down instead of being on their feet for six hours.

Jungkook was happy to say he was different. Yes, he was doing the same-old coffee shop gig, but he really loved his job and had no interest in doing anything else until he graduated. He liked the coffee making process, sure, but one of the best things about this particular café was their bottomless refills.

If you ordered a black coffee at the Daily Grind, you could pay an extra two dollars for bottomless refills, and Jungkook would just pop out from behind the bar whenever he got the chance to come top up the drink for you. It meant that the number of actually difficult, elaborate drinks went down, and the number of easy customers who just wanted to stay wired in the most efficient way went up.

For being only a five-minute walk off campus, very few other university students actually came to study. Most were too entranced by the Starbucks on campus by the library to even think about outsourcing their caffeine.

There was one regular, though.

Jungkook figured she probably wanted a little more peace and quiet to get her work done, as she always had a bulky backpack filled with textbooks and stapled papers and stationery that she’d rotate through for hours at a time.

Maybe if the café was a little busier, Jungkook wouldn’t spend so much time thinking about her. But as it was, she was one of the only regulars that came in the afternoons while he was working, and over time he learnt more about her than he ever would have expected from a strange customer.

She was probably at least a year or two above him at uni judging by the long, super scientific titles of her engineering textbooks, and he had heard from his friend Jimin, who’s boyfriend was in third-year engineering, that by the time you got to that point, the pressures of good grades were heightened to the max, as well as the importance of trying to apply for apprenticeships and internships at a good company to get your foot in the door.

The stress of that whole situation certainly seemed to apply to her. He was pretty sure he could count on one hand the number of times she had actually looked at him when he came over to fill up her cup. She was either on hyper-speed, scribbling out equations and punching away on a calculator, or she was staring blankly at the page, half-heartedly doodling on a napkin to try and keep her mind occupied. Every few minutes or so, she rubbed her eyes gingerly like she had allergies or something.

That was another thing he had taken notice of over the several weeks she had been coming here. Her cute little drawings. Sometimes they were little blueprint diagrams as she worked out problems, but most of the time they were of a different style entirely.

Jungkook prided himself on having a good eye for art, seeing as he was two years deep into a photography degree at the fine arts school within the university, and he knew that she had a real gift, even though this was clearly the only practice she was getting. An empty cup with some dregs at the bottom; a shoe sticking out from behind a booth wall, a hand clasped around a coffee plunger handle that looked remarkably like his own. When she couldn’t think straight, she’d start drawing things she saw in the café.

One day, Jungkook noticed if she ran out of napkins she’d stop altogether and switch to impatiently drumming her fingers on the table and huffing. From that day on, he’d always bring three or four extra napkins every time he came over to top up her coffee.

The guilty pleasure of working here, one he’d never admit to but couldn’t help from doing, was that every time she left, he would dart over to her table and grab all the napkins for himself before the table got cleared by the cashier.

Whenever he found himself in a rut, not knowing how to photograph something original, he would take out those napkins and look over her drawings. He liked the way she saw the world. She focused on the details but made them look larger than life, in a way.

He would tell himself at 4pm every day of work, as he was tying on his apron, that today would be the day he’d work up the courage to talk to her. He would create elaborate fantasies in his head, the way she smiled and blinked up at him as he spoke, like he was the only thing in the world to her. The way she would invite him to sit so that they could talk about their favorite classical artists and after his shift ended, she’d ask for his number.

But he could never do it. The pretty angles of her face would tense up with worry and stress the moment she opened up her hulking bag and dumped some more study material on the table. Her eyes never blinked up at him at all when he came over to her, and he didn’t even think she was aware of the extra effort he went to to provide her with drawing materials.

Jungkook just wasn’t headstrong enough to talk to her and risk a bad reaction. God, what if she got annoyed at him and left? What if she found another café where she wouldn’t be bothered and never came back?

He had gotten so used to seeing her four times a week while on duty that he didn’t know what he’d do with himself if he messed that up.

So, he just refilled her coffees and kept giving her more napkins. Over time, as the middle of the semester approached, she was bringing more and more textbooks and practice papers, was typing more furiously into her calculator, and the soft, introspective lines of her napkin vignettes became aggressive chicken scratch of the ‘wet floor’ sign and the lines of electrical wires on the ceiling and her own massive calculator.

He had come to expect this dead-eyed, clenched-jaw version of her, and it came as a great shock to him when a man, still young but definitely older than Jungkook, opens the door to the café with a little bell jingle, and immediately paces over to the booth she’s tucked into, loudly proclaiming her name and sitting across from her.

To Jungkook’s complete surprise, it’s like the sun has risen inside the room. She looks up and beams at him, pushing the stack of work between them to one side.

As they chat back and forth like old friends, Jungkook can barely focus on the takeaway order he’s supposed to be making. Why did she never smile like that to him, even before things got so hectic? He suddenly had a desperate longing to have her look at him like that, even once. The way her eyes lit up as she listened to the guy wax poetic about his philosophy paper and scrunched up her nose a little when she told a joke. The light but hearty resonance of her laughter that pealed out through the shop periodically. All these things were completely new to Jungkook, but he knew he wanted more.

At one point, the man hops up and comes over to the counter. The cashier is on her break, so Jungkook takes the order.

“Could I please get a croissant and she’ll have a…caramel slice, please. Oh, and could I have a large chai latte? Thanks.”

Jungkook has to clear his throat to keep from freezing. Since when did she ever order anything else other than the one bottomless coffee? Was it a date? “Yeah, sure. That’s just twelve dollars, fifty cents.” The man pulls out a card to pay with, and as the order is processing, Jungkook can’t help himself. “You two are a cute couple,” he offers.

Thankfully, the man just laughs. “That’s nice of you to say, but we aren’t a couple. Old friends, actually.”

Jungkook nods and muffles his relieved grin, pulling out a takeaway cup. “Could I have a name for the drink, sir?”

“Namjoon.”

“That’ll just be a couple minutes away.”

The man sits back down and the two resume their lively conversation, but Jungkook tunes out, already planning what he can say to get the girl to smile at him the way she’s smiling now.

Jungkook doesn’t see the girl for five days. Of course, two of those days are a weekend, but she doesn’t come to the Daily Grind on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday, and he can’t help but be saddened by the lack of her presence. Shifts seem so much longer, and for today, a drizzly Thursday, he is not looking forward to going back there.

For the first time since the start of the year, almost twelve weeks ago, Jungkook finds himself on the main campus, tasked with borrowing a book from the library about contemporary lighting techniques. The waitlist was thirty students long, but finally it was his turn.

The online catalogue told him it was on the fourth floor, so stairs were most certainly not an option. He gets in on the second floor, but to his shock, someone familiar is already in there.

It’s the girl from the café. His heart races as he stands next to her, but she doesn’t react.

He clears his throat. “I, uh, I haven’t seen you drop by for a while?”

She starts at the sudden noise, her eyes blinking wildly as she looks him over. “I’m sorry, do I know you?”

“Oh,” Jungkook sighs. “I guess you probably don’t recognize me. I’m the barista at the Daily Grind, I do most weeknights.”

Her face lights up, though her eyes are still a little glassy. “Oh, Jungkook, right?”

“Y- Yeah.” She knew his name? Then why the weird reaction?

“I’m so sorry, I lost a contact earlier today, so I’ve been wandering around like a zombie, trying not to bump into things.” She gives him a little laugh, and he’s struck by how different she is here than she’s ever been in the café. She’s acting almost as friendly as when that Namjoon dude came into the store.

“Have you, uh, have you found a new café to go to?” The elevator stops on the fourth floor, but he makes no move to get out, and the doors close again. “I haven’t seen you around recently.”

“Oh, no, no more bottomless coffees for me. I’ve been studying like crazy for the midterm for way too long, and now that it’s over, I think I need to give my body some time to filter out the percentage of caffeine in my veins. Thank you for giving me extra napkins, by the way. I’m sorry I go through them so quickly, nervous habit, you know?”

His heart beats so strongly in his ears it almost sounds like waves crashing. So, this whole time, she had noticed him. And she had kept on coming back. “You’re all finished with the midterm, then?”

More people file in to the elevator from the sixth floor, but she takes no notice, swiveling around so she’s facing him head-on. “Yeah, actually, I got it back this morning, and I managed to get an A-! Honestly, I have no idea how that happened, but I guess all the desperate cramming paid off.”

“That’s amazing,” he enthuses. The button she had pressed, floor eight, was steadily approaching. This was the chance he had spent way too long dreaming up. “You should celebrate all your hard work,” he begins, giving her a soft smile, “I know this great little café you might like.”

#bts oneshot #bts au #jungkook fic #jungkook x reader #jungkook oneshot #jeongguk x reader #jeongguk fic #jeongguk oneshot

429 notes · View notes

captainkippen · 5 years

Note

I'm sad and if you're still taking prompts, could you write a fluffy prompt of a universe where TJ does dress up as the summer to Cyrus's salt and they're just being all cute and the Mt. Rushmore costume is still completed and things are happy

I GOT YOU BRO.

Costume day is one of Cyrus’ favourite days of the year. It’s the one day of school where everyone seems to really go all out for once. People put a lot of effort into their outfits and it’s always fun to try and guess what some of the more obscure ideas are in between classes. This year, with TJ asking him to do a joint costume, he’s even more excited than usual. He feels a little bad about bailing on Andi because he knows how much she loves the Mount Rushmore costume (it’s been lurking in her closet waiting for a chance to rise again for ages much to the exasperation of everyone else - not that they’d ever ruin her fun by telling her that though). However, it’s hard to be too worried when he knows they’ve got Marty as a backup and TJ wants to do a joint costume. A joint costume of their own inside joke no less. It’s pretty awesome.

When he gets to school he picks self-consciously at the hem of his shirt until he spots TJ walking towards him and he can’t help himself from beaming. TJ’s face lights up in response. He looks so good in his board shorts and flip-flops. They greet one another with the usual handshake and bro hug, lingering for a moment when TJ doesn’t drop Cyrus’ hand immediately.

“Looking good, Teej,” Cyrus says, poking at the sunglasses on his face.

“You don’t look so bad yourself,” TJ smiles. “I like the strainer. Nice touch.”

“Thank you, thank you,” Cyrus does a little bow, the strainer sliding forward as he does. TJ catches it quickly with a loud bark of laughter and places back on his head with light fingers.

“Hey, guys!” Comes Buffy’s voice from behind them and the two of them turn to see her with Marty, Jonah and Andi carrying a large papier-mache mountainside with four head holes. Cyrus’ grin widens.

“Good morning,” he greets them.

TJ gives them an odd look. “What’s with the… boulder?”

“Mount Rushmore,” Andi chirps. “That’s what we’re going as. We just have to do the makeup and stuff, we’re on our way now.”

“Oh man, you guys are going to look awesome,” TJ says. “That’s such a cool idea.”

“What about you guys?” Marty asks, then gestures excitedly at Cyrus. “Wait… don’t tell me! I totally get it. Salt!”

Buffy snorts.

“But I don’t get what TJ is meant to be..”

“Summer,” Cyrus provides helpfully.

“Salt and summer?”

“Oh! Summer-salt!” Andi says. “That’s so cute.”

“I have no idea what’s going on,” Marty sighs. Jonah nudges him and shrugs as if to say ‘me either’.

TJ smiles and throws an arm around Cyrus’ shoulders. “It’s an inside joke.”

The rest of the day follows in a similar fashion but Cyrus finds that he doesn’t mind explaining the costume to people over and over again. Every time they do, TJ gets this big soft smile on his face like he’s really proud of himself for thinking of it and that makes it hard to feel anything but pleased. It’s confirmation over and over again that TJ really cares about their friendship, that he actually enjoys being around Cyrus and thinks about the memories that they’ve made on a regular basis.

It probably shouldn’t take as long as it does for everything to click for him.

He’s sat in English class before lunch and totally zoning out on whatever their teacher is talking about because he’s thinking about TJ’s smile when someone asked to hear the somersault story a little while ago. When he looks down at where he’s been doodling mindlessly on the page he realises that he’s filled the corner of his notes with little scribbled hearts. Oh no.

The bell goes and all of a sudden he’s incredibly glad that Buffy is in this class with him because it makes it so much easier to grab her as they head out the door. He pulls her aside and sort of just flails at her for a moment, letting loose incoherent babbling mess of words at about eighty miles an hour while she stares at him with wide eyes.

“Cyrus,” she says, putting her hands her shoulders to ground him. “Speak slower. I can’t understand a word you’re saying.”

And with that, he calms down just enough to say, “TJ.”

“What about him?”

“I think I have a crush on him,” he blurts out.

There’s a pause. Buffy diverts her eyes upwards like she’s praying for boys to be less stupid then looks back at him, exasperated. “You’re only just figuring this out now?”

“What?!” He squawks. “What do you mean I’m only just figuring this out? You knew? How did you know?! I didn’t even know, how could you have possibly known that!”

“We just figured-”

“We?!”

“Yes, me and Andi.”

“Andi knows?! How do you-”

Buffy clamps a hand over his mouth, effectively silencing him for the time being and gives him an impatient look. “You guys spend a lot of time together. Like a lot. And that wouldn’t be unusual except for the fact you’re always touching each other and looking at each other like you’re the only two people in the world. Did you know you talk about TJ literally all the time? And he’s the same with you. You’re in a couples costume, Cyrus. I can’t believe you didn’t realise this earlier.”

He says something but it’s muffled by her palm and she drops it. “What?”

“I said,” he repeats in disbelief. “Are you implying that TJ also has a crush on me?”

“Obviously.”

“But we don’t even know if he likes boys…”

“Cyrus, he brought challah to your Bubbe’s shiva. He reported Reed’s gun to the police for you. He made up with me, Jonah and Andi because of you. He taught you how to do a somersault and then came up with a costume for it. If he doesn’t like you I’ll eat my own foot.”

Cyrus leans back and lets his head thunk back against the wall in a stunned daze. Buffy’s right. Oh God, she’s so right. He has actual, legitimate, romantic-type feelings for TJ Kippen and TJ probably has those same feelings for him. How the hell did this even happen?

“I know your brain is like exploding right now,” Buffy says, only half-sympathetic. “But can we go get lunch now? I’m starving.”

Cyrus and TJ walk home together and the two of them end up sitting by the pond in the park. It’s become one of their top places to hang out, ever since the gun incident, and the peaceful way that the sun falls on them while a soft breeze blows over the water does not match the pace of the reeling thoughts in Cyrus’ head at all. He knits together a chain of daisies as he thinks - he, Buffy and Andi used to spend hours making all sorts of flowery jewellery just like that. It’s soothing.

“You okay?” TJ asks, knocking their elbows together. “You’re really quiet.”

“Just thinking.”

“Penny for your thoughts? Though… I don’t think I actually have a penny on me. The pockets on these shorts suck,” he jokes and Cyrus can’t help but laugh a little.

He’s always doing that. He’s always making Cyrus smile and laugh without even thinking about it. Things are so easy around TJ and it’s all hitting him at once. He’s never felt like he had to be anything but himself around him. Never felt pressured to try and be ‘normal’ or change. TJ listens to his rants and his rambles and his info-dumps. He listens to Cyrus talk about his hyper fixations non-stop, then he goes away and looks them up so he can take part in the conversation in a meaningful way. In return, he shows Cyrus the things he loves and always looks so happy to do so… as if he wants Cyrus involved. He wants Cyrus to be a part of his world.

Cyrus wants to hold his hand and cuddle up to him on the couch when they watch television. He wants to go on picnic and bowling dates, to the movies and arcade together. He wants to steal TJ’s hoodies, take tons of cheesy pictures for Instagram and make so many inside jokes together that they can’t possibly remember them all. When he looks at TJ it’s like his heart is overflowing with emotion. How did he not see it before?

“Why did you want to do a costume together?” He asks.

TJ shrugs and picks at the grass beside him. “It seemed like fun. It was a cool idea, right?”

“It was awesome,” Cyrus confirms.

“Why d’you ask?”

Cyrus shrugs and looks away. “It’s nothing. Just… don’t worry about it. Here,” he finishes threading the daisies into a circle and drops it over TJ’s head so it falls around his neck. TJ beams at him and the butterflies in Cyrus’ stomach erupt into an excited flurry.

“Do I look pretty now?” TJ asks teasingly.

Cyrus can’t stop himself when he says, “You always look pretty.”

He feels himself going red and TJ raises his eyebrows in surprise. He doesn’t look mad or uncomfortable though, just slightly amused and like he hadn’t expected Cyrus to say it. He supposes that’s fair - he hadn’t expected himself to say it.

“Thanks, Underdog,” he replies. The sincerity of his tone is startling. “You look pretty too. All the time.” And then he kisses Cyrus on the cheek, leans back and bites his lip nervously. “Sorry, was that okay?”

The space on his skin where TJ’s lips pressed is still tingling and Cyrus lifts a hand to his cheek to press his fingers against it softly as he nods. “More than okay.”

“Great,” TJ says, his dopey smile returning full force, and he lifts his own hand to take Cyrus’ from his cheek and thread their fingers together. “I’m glad you said yes to the costume.”

“I’m glad you asked.”

They grin at each other and return to talking about their days. The daisy chain that hangs around TJ’s neck gets pressed between the pages of a book and kept in a box of memories for years to come. Ten years after that day by the pond, Cyrus hangs a picture of the two of them in their matching costume on the wall of the living room in the first house they buy together. It’s pretty awesome.

#tyrus #andi mack #my writing #anonymous

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reddielibrary · 6 years

Photo

The Better to See You With, My Dear

prompt: richie gets contacts and eddie is feeling ????? about it

written by: Alexis | quixoticquest

word count: 3960

*click title to read on AO3

Thirteen months, from kindergarten to first grade, marked the span of time Eddie Kaspbrak had known a Richie Tozier with perfect vision - and he didn’t remember a lick of it. Not the bare-faced expressions around the storytime mat, not the way dark brown eyes appeared without bugging behind enormous lenses. Not when Richie started squinting at the chalkboard in the October of first grade, not when he tripped and broke his nose on Halloween because he couldn’t see to begin with and certainly not out the tiny holes of his ghost sheet. Eddie remembered first grade when Richie got his glasses though, and even though he remembered in kindergarten too. Sometimes he found himself arguing with Bill or Stanley about the actuality of events, and even Richie’s own input wasn’t always enough to settle the stubborn hypochondriac.

Richie’s Glasses was just one of those things that had Always Been or felt like it had anyway. The chances of catching a glimpse of him with them off, out of the pool or at a sleepover, were so fleeting that Glasses just became the default. Growing up, the only thing Eddie could count on to never change was his friends, their quirks, familiar and comforting.

So you could imagine his concern when Richie announced his parents had finally caved and were taking him to get fitted for contact lenses.

Trashmouth Tozier had been begging to trade in his specs for years. The Losers Club had been on the receiving end of his whining for just as long, constantly groaning about how much of a drag it was to push them up his nose and clean them and keep them from getting broken (which he wasn’t very good at). But with his own hygiene regimen spotty at best, especially during the pubescent years, Mr. and Mrs. Tozier weren’t super keen to get Richie something that would require constant upkeep like that.

It wasn’t until Richie turned sixteen that all his whining paid off - and by then, Eddie thought he’d be stuck in glasses forever.

A Friday afternoon marked the end of what had Always Been. Richie left class early for his appointment at the eye doctor, rubbing his hand through Eddie’s hair on his way past his desk, pointing dramatically with both hands at the trademark frames across his face, before disappearing out the door with two thumbs up. It probably wasn’t the last Eddie would ever see of Richie with his glasses on, but it might as well have been.

That idiot refused to hang out with any of them the following weekend, drawing out the days and hours until Monday like some kind of sadist. The worst part was that he had homeroom with Beverly and Bill. Eddie wouldn’t even see Richie until fourth period.

“Mike said Ben said Bev said it was really weird,” Stan reported to Eddie during second period gym, and left it at that since there were balls to hit and bases to run.

The worst part was fourth period was Spanish, and Eddie had gone above his academic expectations for once and taken the Honors class, where they weren’t allowed to speak English, even to ask to use the bathroom. If he had known Richie was going to throw this curveball at him last year when he registered for classes, he would have stayed in Advanced and fucked Honors courses altogether.

There was no time to prepare - only to school himself when Richie came through the door, a couple of seconds before the bell, and descended into the seat beside Eddie as if nothing had happened. Really, technically, nothing had happened - but try telling that to the wound up dork gnawing the end of his pencil like a Twizzler.

Beverly was right, it was super weird. Richie’s glasses made his eyes huge, all big and shiny, and now they almost looked too small for his face. Eddie could see his eyebrows better, which made him even more expressive if that was even possible. It was easier to see his cheekbones too, though nothing could be done about all the miles of face hiding under his mophead until he bit the bullet and got a proper haircut.

“¿No me veo hermosa?” Richie asked, cheesing with all his teeth, bare eyes wide.

“Cállate,” Eddie griped, fixing his gaze on the chalkboard at the front of the room before he could be caught staring.

A couple days went by, and besides the occasional remark from their friends (and Richie’s constant boasting), nothing really changed. Or rather, a lot had changed, but Eddie seemed to be the only one who noticed. Was one day really all they were going to devote to this? Richie’s entire appearance had been reshaped with the exclusion of one single accessory! The entire fabric of who he was as a person had been altered forever.

Of course, Eddie couldn’t say that out loud because he knew it was ridiculous. Which might have been the worst part.

A week or so after the initial reveal, they had all gathered at Bill’s house to brainstorm for the college applications that would be due to submit as soon as the end of this summer. Eddie had been staring at the same blank page in his composition book for the last hour, scratching aimless doodles into the margin that probably wouldn’t have any bearing on the schools he was looking at (rather, the ones his guidance counselor was telling him to look at).

“Do you think I need to put varsity football and JV?” Mike asked, brows furrowed at his extensive list of extracurriculars. “Or is varsity big enough that JV is a given?”

“Here’s what I think: ditch them both,” Richie announced, pointing the end of his pen at Mike. “Better yet, dump the resume and essay altogether. Just submit a headshot and you’ll have all those schools begging for you to commit.”

Mike beamed. Beside him, Stanley leaned forward to tuck his chin onto his fist - fretting over a list even longer than Mike’s. Eddie was still trying to decide if the one day of mock trial he attended sophomore year counted as anything.

“Don’t tell me that’s what you’re doing,” Stan drawled at Richie - who sighed, his too-small eyes fluttering shut so he could tilt his head back.

“I could, but it wouldn’t be fair. It’s a shame, but this mug outshines all the volunteer work in the world. ‘Specially with all my handsome out on display for everyone to see now. Isn’t that right, Eds?”

Eddie clamped his tongue between his teeth and grunted, a paltry shadow of his usually feisty retorts. They were becoming harder and harder to dish out since they usually thrived on eye contact, which was becoming harder and harder to maintain with Richie looking like that.

They went on scribbling away, some more than others. At some point, while Bill was on the phone ordering pizza, Richie stood, hiking his legs overhead and limb alike to make it to the bathroom, backpack clutched in one hand - not that Eddie really took notice, since the seven of them had been getting up for various reasons all night.

He did notice, however, when Richie came back wearing his glasses.

“Well look who it is,” Beverly chuckled (because no one could ever let anything go unnoticed among the seven of them). “Haven’t seen you in a while.”

“Yeah yeah yeah, laugh all you want,” Richie retorted, arms rising over his head in some gesture of surrender, even as he smiled from under those familiar frames. “I can’t afflict you with my drop dead unfiltered gorgeousness all the time. It would be irresponsible.”

“But your obnoxious personality is totally fine, right?” Eddie snorted - unaware of just how easily it came out when that tortoise shell barrier was there.

Richie grinned his Richie grin. “Truth is, if you must know, my eyes were starting to hurt. Figured I’d switch so I didn’t have to turn in early. Now, let’s see if I remember how to work these things.”

If this was the return to form Eddie had been craving, maybe that meant he should savor it. There was no doubt he would see Richie in his glasses several times before the year was even out, though few and far between they may be.

This, he decided, glancing sidelong at the mophead trashmouth jackass beside him, was his opportunity to kiss goodbye that thing that had Always Been, and rev up for something new. Suck it up, take it like a champ. Like an adult, and not a baby who cried over object permanence.

But the next day at school, Eddie didn’t get a chance to put his rev-up to the test, because Richie came in with his specs on.

“I was running late,” he explained, launching into a long account of a hectic morning at lunchtime, that Eddie couldn’t even be bothered to pretend to care about.

Maybe he was late the next day too because once more he showed up bespectacled. No one really cared to ask, and he didn’t care to explain. But as the days crept on into weeks, into a month, the contacts seemed to have disappeared altogether.

Chief of all who didn’t care about this particular regression was Eddie - so much so that he didn’t even realize he didn’t care. He probably didn’t notice there was a difference at all. After all, what was so weird about Richie wearing glasses?

With finals coming up and Spanish kicking his ass, circumstances called for a study session. Eddie almost managed to intercept Richie at the front door and bustle him up to his room, but his mom’s Sonia Sense must have started tingling because she found them just in time to make it very clear that there would be no Toziers in her house after nine o’clock.

“I brought the new X-Men,” Richie proclaimed in a stage whisper when they reached Eddie’s room, wiggling a glossy issue in a plastic sleeve at Eddie.

“You’re here to study Spanish,” Eddie said at a completely normal volume. “Not Rogue’s boobs.”

Richie blew a raspberry. “She’s not even in this one, doofus. And last I checked, you’re pushing a B minus, and I’m on the star students poster.”

“Then stop speaking English and help me!”

Usually, study sessions devolved into aimless chaos pretty quickly, but they did a pretty good job of keeping on track this time, and Eddie did a pretty good job of keeping Richie and his constant asinine distractions at bay. It didn’t matter that the four-eyed idiot kept snickering at his color-coded flashcards either.

“I can’t remember the word for broom,” Eddie murmured at some point, pushing his top lip around with the eraser on his pencil.

“My mom said I better start wearing my contacts again or she’s not gonna pay for them,” Richie sighed.

Eddie looked up from his seat on the floor, arms folded around his flashcards on the edge of his bed. Richie, flopped across the mattress, flipped absently through his notebook full of chicken scratch. The bend of his head and the frames of his glasses concealed his expression ever so slightly.

“Huh?” Eddie asked dumbly.

Richie glanced over and pushed his specs up by the pad of his thumb. “La escoba,” he pronounced.

“You haven’t been wearing your contacts?” Eddie specified.

“Oh, I have,” Richie replied, nodding confidently. “I wear them with my glasses. That’s double the corrected vision. I can see into the fifth dimension.”

Eddie mimicked him in an unintelligible tone.

“Richie, why aren’t you wearing your contacts?” The question made him feel entirely too much like a parent. Hell, maybe that’s exactly what Mrs. Tozier had asked, hands on her hips and all.

Twisting his mouth every which way, Richie adjusted himself, pushing his notebook to the side, since he obviously wasn’t using it for anything practical. The yellow lamplight illuminating Eddie’s room sent the oblongs of white on the lenses of Richie’s Glasses around the frames as he moved.

Suddenly Eddie remembered the tangible possibility of Richie’s Glasses disappearing again. It wasn’t a very fun thought to remember.

“I dunno,” Richie finally confessed, setting his face in his hands, and his elbows on his knees. “It’s just - I mean I guess it’s just not how I thought they were gonna be.”

“Are they uncomfortable?” Eddie asked.

“Only for the first couple days.”

“Is it a lot to keep them clean?”

“No, you just hit ‘em with the contact solution. If I can’t aim and squirt then what kind of man would I be, Eds?”

Eddie huffed and rolled his eyes. He should have known better than to indulge I dunno and all the potentials for humor that might follow.

Situating himself squarely in front of his notes, though, it only took a couple seconds for Richie to roll himself back into Eddie’s line of sight - effectively demanding his attention again.

“I guess I just,” Richie mumbled, poking around one of the flashcards - armario-closet, to be precise. “I dunno. Thought I’d look better without glasses.”

Kneeling on the floor, with Richie laid out in front of him, put them basically at eye level. From here, though, Richie had to lift his gaze ever so slightly. Eddie watched his brows arch from behind his specs, dark eyes blinking. An unfiltered view - sort of.

“Look better?” Eddie repeated.

“Well, when you get called four-eyes your whole life…” Richie huffed, and rolled back again, always restless. “I just thought it’d be different y’know? I’ve got such a lousy prescription and I thought I’d finally look like less of a dumbass nerd with contacts but...maybe I’m overthinking it but it just doesn’t seem like you guys like me when I don’t wear my glasses.”

Eddie’s face screwed up. “What?”

Richie shrugged. “Maybe I talked it up too much but I was kind of hoping you’d make a bigger deal. No one really said anything or talked about it so I was like, oh shit, maybe I am hideous. Or maybe the glasses are just the perfect accessory to my comedy and I’ve ruined the whole schtick by dropping them. Or, you know, I’m hideous. Either or.”

“It’s not a big deal because you’re just you, Richie,” Eddie stated (completely unaware of what a hypocrite he was being). “So what if we didn’t say anything? We can’t go on and on about your face for the rest of our stupid lives.”

“Yeah, but…” Now, Richie sighed again, perhaps becoming too self-aware of how serious he had made the moment. “Eddie, it kind of felt like you couldn’t even talk or look at me when I wasn’t wearing my glasses.”

This was the part where Eddie felt like the biggest ass in the whole world. He might as well have turned into a donkey, like in Looney Tunes.

“Which could totally be just me,” Richie went on, smacking himself upside the head. “But that’s just what it felt like. So maybe it’s just me. I’m perfectly happy to be the idiot on this one. I’m usually very good at it.”

There was no way he could focus on Spanish now. Eddie collected all his flashcards and placed them in a neat little stack on the floor, so he could push himself up to sit on his own bed.

It was a crisis about fucking glasses. It didn’t need to get that deep. And yet, somehow, he felt like he owed Trashmouth Tozier somewhat of an apology - if you could fucking believe it.

“It’s not just the contacts,” Eddie confessed, tipping his head down.

“Aha, I was right,” Richie declared in a lackluster tone.

“It’s everything,” Eddie blurted right on his heels, sagging with a deep breath. “Everything is changing, Rich. And everything that changes just reminds me that all the stuff that’s Always Been is gonna be over next year when we graduate. Braces are coming off and bikes are getting sold and we’re all starting college applications that we’re not even going to submit for six months!”

He dropped his hands in his lap, slapping against his thighs, a crisp punctuation to his rant. Out of breath, Eddie puffed through his nose. Of course, now the room had to be dead silent, clawing and prodding at him with the reminder that this was way too honest for a study session.

Richie stared at him though, peculiarly thoughtful. At the very least, he wasn’t looking so much like a kicked, bespectacled puppy anymore.

“Well,” he finally said, steepling his hands between them, “this may come as a surprise to you, Eds, but I’ve always had eyes.”

“Oh shut up,” Eddie snapped (almost relieved for the lighthearted response). “You’ve always had glasses. And now you won’t, because you’re finally old enough to have contacts, and soon you’ll be old enough to move out and get out of dodge like we’re all gonna do.”

“Yeah, but isn’t that what we want?” Richie asked.

“I guess. It just feels like I liked thinking about it better as something far away then something we’re all flying toward at top speed.”

Childhood sucked. Any of the seven of them could tell you that. So why did the thought of it truly ending ache so much? Were the losers worth more than leaving Derry? Apparently fucking not, since they were all perfectly content to make their attempts to escape.

Just as Eddie was feeling sorry for himself, staring at the patterns in his quilt, Richie did something quite uncharacteristic. Just out of his line of sight, the trashmouth put his hand over the top of Eddie’s, curling them together in some gesture of support.

It was pretty awkward, but comforting in a weird, forced kind of way.

“I’m still me,” Richie said, offering his solid gaze when Eddie looked up. “Fuck you know I’m an idiot with the glasses on and off. That’s never gonna change. Hell, you can even call me four eyes of you want. The other two could be - hm - my nipples maybe? I’ve got that one eyed snake in my pants but that only makes three.”

“Richie-”

“The point is, Edward,” he continued, somehow lofty and sincere at the same time, “not everything is changing. Maybe we don’t get to sitcom it up at some university all seven of us. But we still have each other, as mushy gushy as that sounds. I’ll always be a phone call away. You called me to make me cart my ass over here. And I know the others feel the same way.”

What do you know? For all the stupid crap that came out of his mouth, Richie said something intelligent (and comforting) for once.

Before the telltale sting in his eyes could gain any traction, Eddie sighed his cares away or at least tried to. A motivational speech couldn’t fix everything. But just Richie saying it, Richie of all people, was enough to set him at ease. At least for now. And to think it hadn’t even been about Eddie in the first place.

“I know,” he answered, finally, soundly. If that wasn’t the only thing he was sure of, then he wasn’t sure of anything.

“I’m sorry I made you think I think you’re ugly,” Eddie added, deciding he wasn’t a huge fan of how he phrased that. “You’re not, I promise.”

Richie blinked at him expectantly. His hand still sat clammy and warm on top of Eddie’s.

“Well, if I’m not ugly, then what am I, Eds?”

“Oh, don’t you start,” Eddie ground out, pulling himself away.

“No no, this is important to me.” Richie sniffled dramatically, wiping away nonexistent tears from under his glasses, advancing incrementally. “You really hurt me, y’know? I’m broken-hearted. I might never heal.”

“Sure you won’t.”

“Come on, Eds!” At this point, Richie was practically bent over Eddie, and if he didn’t want to slide off the bed, he had to prop himself up on his hands, with nowhere else to go. “If I’m not an uggo then I must be something else won’t you please tell me what it is? Boost a poor boy’s self-esteem.”

“As if you need a self-esteem boost!”

“Pretty please, Eds? I’m dying here. The anticipation is killing me.”

“You’re okay looking I guess!” Maybe it was important that Eddie say it or maybe it wasn’t but he figured it was the least he could do (even if it warmed his face in the process). “You got a strong jaw and nice lips and sometimes I hear girls talking about your cheekbones and I guess I sort of agree with them!”

Maybe, Eddie realized retrospectively, he had revealed too much. Mostly because, Richie was staring at him from behind those big lenses - just a little too tenderly to be joking.

“Whoa,” he muttered. “That’s like, the nicest thing anyone has ever said about me. Besides my mom.”

Eddie blinked, feeling the heat spread further into his face. “Well I didn’t mean-”

Somehow managing not to send Eddie careening off the bed, Richie pressed forward enough to catch his lips in an entirely unexpected kiss. What Eddie lacked in mobility at the moment, he made up for in reaction time and found it in him to tip his chin up into Richie’s mouth without suffering all the shock and surprise that might have him freezing unhelpfully.

Richie got his arms around him and figured out how to pull him back onto the bed, which enabled Eddie to get a grip of his own, clinging to Richie’s shirt for all he was worth while their lips shifted and bumped together. Such a natural progression, it was a wonder it hadn’t occurred until just this moment.

Before they could get too carried away (which Eddie wasn’t super opposed to), Richie broke, huffing for air, as if he had been submerged in water. Rather than dwell on what kind of idiot couldn’t pace his own breathing (because he wasn’t one to talk about respiratory issues), Eddie stared up at Richie’s face, from the cradle of his arms, Klimt style.

To think Mrs. Kaspbrak was just downstairs tuning in to Dateline.

Without thinking very much about it, Eddie got one hand free to reach up to Richie’s face and pulled his glasses off carefully. That bare gaze followed his hand all the way to the side, as he folded up the arms and put them somewhere where they wouldn’t get in the way.

Richie’s eyes weren’t too small. They were probably perfectly normal sized, almost droopy in a way that was too endearing for his own good. And of course, there were those pink lips, and those cheekbones (which Eddie may or may not have come up with all on his own, no girls required).

“Well that’s just counterproductive,” Richie stated, quirking a smile in Eddie’s direction.

“How come?”

“What’s the point of no glasses if I can’t see you? Need those corrective lenses to ogle that booty, baby.”

Before Eddie could snap at him, he was kissed again, sweet and sound, and he couldn’t argue with that.

Maybe it was okay if some things that had Always Been changed. Eddie, for one, was certainly glad that he didn’t have a laundry list of medication to take any more. Things like Bill getting over his stutter and Stanley getting less anxious were good. Kissing Richie regularly was certainly a welcome change. And Eddie could learn to love a Richie with contacts, even if it was different from what had Always Been.

Just so long as Richie blinked his lenses in on the first try because watching the little disk flop out between his eyelashes was the fastest way to make Eddie gag.

#reddie #reddielibrary #prompt fill #writing team

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john-cardoza · 5 years

Text

Awkward Lesbians

Enjoy my first prom one shot. I’m positing it like this because I’m pretty sure there’s something weird going on with links. (Ao3 link is on my blog)

“Emma Nolan and Alyssa Greene”

Alyssa looked up from where she had been doodling in her notebook for the past hour. “What?”

Mrs. Brooks sighed “I’m assigning partners for the upcoming project” She looked Alyssa up and down, taking note of the fact that she had not been paying attention “Hopefully your partner will be willing to fill you in”

A couple of students giggled causing Alyssa to look down at her notebook. She wasn’t sure why Mrs. Brooks seemed to hate her so much, sometimes she zoned out, but overall she was a good student. “Sorry” Alyssa gathered her stuff to go sit by her partner when Mrs. Brooks’ words from earlier finally registered in her mind.Emma Nolan .

Shelby pushed Alyssa’s shoulder a little bit when she passed “Have fun with the freak”

Alyssa met Emma’s eyes with a tentative smile. Emma had clearly heard Shelby, judging by how forced her smile was. Why did Alyssa have to be with Emma? The one person in the school that always made her nervous and fidgety. She would almost say she had a crush on Emma, if that didn't go against everything in her life. “Hi”

“Hey” Emma ducked her head and let her blonde curls fall in front of her face. “I would understand if you didn’t want to be my partner, I’m sure Mrs. Brooks would let me work alone”

“No!” Alyssa jumped a little and Mrs. Brooks glared at her from across the room.

“Ms. Greene, if you can’t handle being in my classroom the door is that way”

“Sorry Mrs. Brooks I stepped on her foot” Emma apologized, covering for Alyssa's disruption.

Mrs. Brooks’ expression softened “Don’t let it happen again”

“Thank you” Alyssa smiled “I would love to work with you”

“Oh” A small blush crept across Emma’s face and Alyssa couldn’t help the part of her that thought it was adorable “Well then when do you want to meet? And where?”

“How about Friday?” Alyssa asked. Cheerleading would go late every other day of the week and it would be easy to sneak out considering her mom was never home on Friday nights ( It’s PTA night Alyssa. You really should come with me next week. Right now we're trying to pass some terrible rule that will make your life miserable. It will be fun! Maybe that isn't exactly what she said, but that's what Alyssa always heard ) “And is there any chance we could meet at your house?”

“Sure” Emma smiled “I’ll see you at five?”

“Sounds perfect”

----

“You’re going to her house?” Kaylee asked the question while they were putting their stuff away “Alone?”

“Yes?” Alyssa wasn’t sure exactly why her friends seemed so shocked. It was for a school project.

Kaylee's eyes widened in a way that would've been funny, if it hadn't been for what she said next “What if she kills you?”

“I’m not too worried about that” Alyssa fidgeted with her too short skirt. She hated cheerleading. "It's a school project"

“I heard she’s gay” Shelby interrupted “What if she tries to kiss you or something?”

Alyssa's stomach did flips, but not for the reason Shelby would've wanted. “Why would she do that?”

“Homosexuals have no moral code” Kaylee stated "Didn't you go to church last week?"

The words felt like they were directed at Alyssa. And even though they weren't she couldn't help the way her heart seemed to freeze in her chest. “I’ll be fine guys, really” Alyssa shouldered her backpack “I should be heading home”

“Can you still come to the mall on Saturday?” Shelby asked. She tossed her blonde hair behind her shoulder. “I want to look at prom dresses”

“The prom is like three months away” Alyssa pointed out. She didn’t want to go, but Shelby and Kaylee would probably drag her along anyway.

“Whatever, are you coming?” Shelby asked

“I don’t think I can, it’s mother-daughter day whatever that means” Knowing her mother it was probably something church related that Alyssa would hate.

“That’s too bad” Kaylee frowned “We could talk to her”

“No it’s fine. I’ll see you on Monday” Alyssa practically ran out the door. She had been hoping to change before going to Emma’s, but it seemed like the blouse and jeans in her backpack would have to do. Why did it matter what Alyssa wore anyway? They were working on a school project.

-------

Emma needed to calm down. She had been pacing back and forth for the past fifteen minutes and even she could admit, it was weird. What did it matter if Alyssa was pretty and nice and smart. It was Indiana for god's sake. Emma was just setting herself up for heartbreak by having a crush on a girl who would probably look at her with disgust if she knew. The doorbell rang and Emma almost tripped in her haste to get to the door.

“Hello” Alyssa was standing awkwardly on the porch and Emma’s words caught in her throat. Alyssa was wearing her cheerleading outfit and appeared to have come straight from practice. Her hair was tied out of her face with a ribbon and a couple strands were hanging in front of her eyes. “It there any chance I can use your bathroom to change?”

Emma shook off the cloud surrounding her head and cleared her throat “Of course. It’s right down the hallway” Emma moved off to the side to let Alyssa through.

“Thanks” Alyssa dropped her backpack by the door and carried her cheer bag with her. Emma focused on closing and locking the door in order to avoid staring at Alyssa as she walked down the hall.

Not even five minutes later Alyssa was back wearing a simple purple blouse and some jeans. “Where do you want to work?”

“I was thinking the kitchen table” Emma offered. She had cleared the table earlier that morning in order to make the house a little more presentable.

“Lead the way” Alyssa traded her cheer bag for her backpack and followed Emma through the living room. “Did you finish the book?”

“Yeah,” Emma sat down next to Alyssa and pulled her stuff over from where she had set it in the middle of the table.

Alyssa leaned off her chair to dig through her backpack. One by one she pulled out a pencil, a notebook, and her copy of Romeo and Juliet. “I think I have a couple ideas, do you want to compare?"

“Sure” Emma flipped through her note book until she came to the page she had filled with ideas. All her notes were neat and a couple were even color coded. On the other hand, Alyssa’s were all written in pencil, hastily scribbled down as though her brain worked faster than her pencil, and surrounded by doodles of various things.

“We need to pick three themes in the book right?” Alyssa asked. She had a basic understanding of the project, but she wanted to make sure it was right.

“And draw pictures of moments in the text that show those themes” Emma was a little worried about that part, but judging by the drawings that filled Alyssa’s notebook, she would be good at the art side of things. Emma had always been better at words than drawings, hopefully their different skill sets would prove compatible and effective.

They worked for two hours straight before the conversation was derailed.

“I always wanted to do gymnastics, but my mom thought that cheerleading would be a “better fit”” Alyssa wasn't sure why she was dumping her life story on Emma, but Emma didn’t seem to mind.

“Why?” Emma had stopped writing and instead was twirling her pencil around her fingers

“I’m pretty sure it’s because she used to be a cheerleader” Alyssa guessed. It always felt like her mom was just trying to turn Alyssa into her. “She’s always trying to change me”

“I think you’re perfect how you are” The words had slipped out and Emma froze waiting to see how they would be received. To her relief Alyssa smiled.

“Thanks Emma” Alyssa couldn’t help herself from pulling Emma into a hug. She wasn’t sure why she already felt closer to Emma than any of her other friends, but she didn’t mind.

-----

They met up twice a week to work on the project for three weeks on top of the class time they were given. By the end of every session they ended up talking about anything from movies they saw, to the other classes they were taking. Alyssa’s crush that she had tried to ignore had developed into something more, and as scary as it was she was also happier than she had ever been. It was the day before the project was due and they were meeting up to add the finishing touches when it happened.

“Do you want to go on a date with me?” Emma wasn’t sure what came over her. Alyssa was laughing at something Emma had just said and Emma was thinking about how beautiful Alyssa looked and the fact that after this they would probably never see each other as friends again, and the words slipped out.

Alyssa was in the middle of pushing her hair out of her face and her hand froze on top of her head. Every single thought fled from her brain and she couldn’t do anything other than stare at Emma in shock. A date. With a girl. With Emma. A date. With a girl. Wi–

After a second Emma seemed to realize that she was about to be rejected and it would probably be worse than that. “Never mind. I shouldn’t have asked. You can just leave and I’ll never talk to you again and–”

“Wait Emma” Alyssa’s brain finally caught up to what was going on and she placed a hand on Emma’s shoulder. “Yes”

“What?” Emma must be dreaming. There was absolutely no way Alyssa Greene liked girls, and wanted to date her. Right?

“I would love to go on a date with you” Alyssa smiled and Emma barely had time to react before they were kissing, and everything suddenly was making sense. Emma pulled Alyssa closer and smiled against her mouth. Their noses bumped together and Alyssa giggled a little bit.

Alyssa could’ve stayed there kissing Emma until the world ended. She would’ve stayed forever. The only thing that possibly could’ve interrupted them was when the front door opened. Alyssa jumped away and Emma picked up the pencil that had fallen to the floor right on time for Emma’s mom to walk in. "It's dinner time, Alyssa should probably be heading home"

“I’m leaving now” Alyssa said awkwardly. She smiled at Emma “Bye Mrs. Nolan”

She ran out the door as fast as she could, only stopping when her phone buzzed.

Emma: Date tomorrow?

Alyssa: Yes!

Alyssa smiled down at her phone. Maybe things weren't all bad.

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